
Class __L 
Book— 






r#>38 



IEN, WOMEN, A 



A SELECTION OF 




SKETCHES, ESSAYS, AND CBITICAL MEMOIRS, 



FEOM 



HIS UNCOLLECTED PROSE WRITINGS, 



BY LEIGH HUNT, 



A NEW EDITION. 



LONDON: 

SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE. 

1870. 



*k*'}L 



"T5 
i 






PREFACE, 



The title of this book, though a peculiar, is not a forced 
one. The reader will see that " Women," upon their own 
grounds, form an essential portion of its contents ; and the 
word suggested itself as soon as the book was thought of. 
The name of the heroine might almost as well have been 
omitted, when a critic was giving an account of the history 
of Angelica and Mecloro. 

Should anything else in the impulsive portions of those 
essays which were written when he was young, appear a 
little out of the pale of recognized manners, in point of 
style and animal spirits, the new reader will be good enough 
to understand, what old ones have long been aware of, and 
grown kind to, — namely, that the writer comes of a tropical 
race ; and that wiiat might have been affectation in a colder, 
blood, was only enthusiasm in a warm one. He is not 
conscious, however, of having suffered anything to remain, 
to which a reasonable critic could object. He has pruned 
a few passages, in order that he might not seem to take 
undue advantage of an extempore or anonymous allowance ; 
and in later years, particularly when seated on the critical 
bench, he has been pleased, and perhaps profited, in con- 
forming himself to the customs of " the court." But had 
he attempted to alter the general spirit of his writings, he 
would have belied the love of truth that is in him, and 
even shown himself ungrateful to public warrant. 



IV PREFACE. 

Not that he has abated a jot of those cheerful and 
hopeful opinions, in the diffusion of which he has now 
been occupied for nearly thirty years of a life passed in 
combined struggle and studiousness : for if there is any- 
thing which consoles him for those short-comings either in 
life or writings, which most men of any decent powers of 
reflection are bound to discover in themselves as they grow 
old, and of which he has acquired an abundant perception, 
it is the consciousness, not merely of having been consistent 
in opinion (which might have been bigotry), or of having 
lived to see his political opinions triumph (which was good 
luck), or even of having outlived misconstruction and 
enmity (though the goodwill of generous enemies is inex- 
pressibly dear to him), but of having done his best to 
recommend that belief in good, that cheerfulness in endea- 
vour, that discernment of universal beauty, that brotherly 
consideration for mistake and circumstance, and that 
repose on the happy destiny of the whole human race, 
which appear to him not only the healthiest and most 
animating principles of action, but the only truly religious 
homage to Him that made us all. 

Let adversity be allowed the comfort of these reflec- 
tions ; and may all who allow them, experience the writer's 
cheerfulness, with none of the troubles that have rendered 
it almost his only possession. 

Kensington, 
May 1st, 1847. 



CONTENTS. 



FICTION AND MATTEE OF FACT. . page 

Sympathies of these two supposed incompatible Things — Mistake of 
Newton—Poets not liable to such Mistakes— False Alarm about 
Science becoming the Ruin of Poetry— Imagination not to be 
limited by Second Causes— Apologue on the Press 1 

THE INSIDE OF AN OMNIBUS, 

Elevation of Society by this Species of Vehicle—Metamorphosis of 
Dr. Johnson into an Omnibus— His Dialogue thereon with Boswell 
— Various Passengers in Omnibuses— Intense Intimacy with the 
Face of the Man opposite you— Boys and Young Ladies— Old 
Gentleman unable to pull up the Glass — -Young Gentleman 
embarrassed with eating an Orange— Exhibition of Characters 
and Tempers—Ladies obliged to sit on Gentlemen's Laps— Last 
Passengers at Night ..... ...„..,.,..., 8 

THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF CARFINGTON 
BLUNDELL, ESQUIPvE, 

Description of a Penurious Independent Gentleman, fond of Invita- 
tions and the Great— He takes his Way to a " Dining Out " — 
His Calamities on the Road— And on his Return..., 19. 

A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 

The Collection there at the Time of the Visit— A Tiger broke loose 
—Mild Anthropophagy of the Bear — The Elephant the Dr. 
Johnson of Animals— GirafLa— Monkeys — Parrots— Eagles- 
Mysteries of Animal Thought— Is it just in Human Beings to 
make Prisons of this kind? „.,..„ 36 



VI CONTENTS. 

A MAN INTRODUCED TO HIS ANCESTORS. 

PAGE 

Astonishing Amount of a Man's Ancestors at the Twentieth Remove 
— The Variety of Ranks as great as the Multitude — Bodily and 
Mental Characteristics Inherited— What it becomes a Man to 
consider as the Result 54 



A NOVEL PARTY. 

Spiritual Creations more real than Corporeal Ones — A Party com- 
posed of the Heroes and Heroines of Novels — Mr. Moses Primrose, 
who has resolved not to be cheated, is delighted with some Infor- 
mation given him by Mr. Peregrine Pickle — Conversation of the 
Author with the Celebrated Pamela — Arrivals of the Rest of the 
Company — The Party found to consist of four Smaller Parties — 
Characters of them — Character of Mr. Abraham Adams — Pamela's 
Distress at her Brother's Want of Breeding — Settlement together 
of Lovelace and Clarissa — Desmond's Waverley asks after the 
Antiquary's Waverley — His Surprise at the Coincidence of the 
Adventure on the Sea-shore — Misunderstanding between Mrs. 
Slipslop and Mrs. Clinker — The Ladies criticized while putting 
on their Cloaks , , ,,., , 57 



BEDS AND BEDROOMS. 

Xntrinsical Nature of Bed — Advantage of People in Bed over People 
that are " Up " — Dialogue with a Person " Up " — Feather-beds, 
Curtains, &c. — Idea of a Perfect Bedroom — Custom Half the 
Secret of Content — Bedroom in a Cottage — Bed at Sea — Beds in 
Presses and Alcoves — Anecdotes of Beds — The Bed of Morpheus 
in Spenser , 67 

THE WORLD OF BOOKS. 

Difficulty of proving that a Man is not actually in a Distant Place, 
by dint of being there in Imagination — Visit of that kind to Scot- 
land—Suggestion of a Book-Geography ; of Maps, in which none 
but Poetical or otherwise Intellectually-associated Places are set 
down — Scottish, English, French, and Italian Items for such 
Maps — Local Literizations of Rousseau and Wordsworth objected 
to — Actual Enrichment of the commonest Places by Intellectual 
Associations , 76 



CONTEXTS. Yll 

JACK ABBOTT'S BREAKFAST. 

PAGE 

Animal Spirits — A Dominie Sampson drawn from the Life — Many 
Things fall out between the (Breakfast) Cup and the Lip — A Magis- 
trate drawn from the Life — Is Breakfast ever to be taken, or is it 
not ? The Question answered , 84 

ON SEEING A PIGEON MAKE LOVE. 

French Intermixture of Prose and Verse — Courtship of Pigeons — A 
Word in Pity for Rakes — Story of one Baffled — Instinctive Same- 
ness of the Conduct of the Lower Animals Questioned— Pope's 
Opinion respecting Instinct and Reason — Human Improvabiiity — 
Fitness of some of the Lower Animals for going to Heaven not 
less conceivable than that of some Others — Doves at Maiano — 
Ovid's Bird-Elysium 1 04 

THE MONTH OF MAY. 

Might not the May-holidays be Restored ?— Melancholy Remnant of 
them — Recollections of a May-morning in Italy 113 



THE GIULI TRE. 

Specimen of Sonnets Written on this Subject hj the Abate Casti ... ...... 120 



A FEW REMARKS ON THE RARE VICE 
CALLED LYING. 

Impossibility of finding a Liar in England — Lying, nevertheless, 
allowed and organized as a Mutual Accommodation, except in 
the Case of Voters at Elections — Reason of this, a Wish to have all 
the Lies on one Side — The Right of Lying arrogated by the Rich 
as a Privilege — Vindication, nevertheless, of the Rich as Human 
Beings — Social Root of apparently Unsocial Feelings — Conven- 
tional Liars not Liars out of the Pale of Conventionality — False- 
hood sometimes told for the Sake of Truth and Good — Final 
Appeal to the Consciences of Anti-Ballotmen 129 



Till CONTENTS. 

CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 

PAGE 

I. Hair, Forehead.— Fault -Finding of the Old Style of Criticism 

Ridiculed — Painting with the Pen — Ugliness of Beauty without 
Feeling —The Hand of the Poisoner — Hair — Under what Circum- 
stances it is allowable to use Artificial Helps to Beauty — Red and 
Golden Hair — Hair of Lucretia Borgia — Forehead 1\36 

II. "Eyes, Eyebrows, Nose. — Eyes — Eyebrows — Frowning without 

Frowning — Eyebrows Meeting — Shape of Head, Face, Ears, and 
Cheeks —Ear-rings — Nose — A Perplexity to the Critics — Ques- 
tion of Aquiline Noses — Angels never painted with them 14G 

III. Mouth, Chin, Teeth, Bosom. — Mouth and Chin — Mouth the 
Part of the Face the least able to conceal the Expression of 
Temper, &c. — Handsome Smiles on Plain Faces— Teeth — Dimples 
—Neck and Shoulders — Perfection of Shape—Bosom — Caution 
against the Misconstructions of the Coarse-minded 155 

IV. Hakd, Arm^Walk, Voice. — Hand and Arm — Italian Epithet 
"Morbida" — Figure — Carriage, &c. — Perils of Fashion — Vice of 
Tight-lacing — Hips— Legs and Feet — Walk — Carriage of Roman 
and Italian Women— That of English preferred — Voice ditto — 
Reason why the most Beautiful Women are in general not the most 
charming: 163 



OF DECEASED STATESMEN WHO HAVE 
WRITTEN VERSES. 

Universality of Poetry, and consequent Good Effect of a Taste for it — 
The greater the Statesman, the more Universal his Mind — Almost 
all Great British Statesmen have written Verses — Specimen of 
Verses by Wyatt, by Essex, by Sackville, Raleigh, Marvell, Peter- 
borough, and Lord Holland 1"1 



FEMALE SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND. 

Real Character of Lady Jane Grey — Excuses for " Bloody Mary " — 
Elizabeth, when Yonng — Anne and the Duchess of Marlborough 
— Accession of her Present Majesty 182 



CONTENTS o IS 

SOCIAL MORALITY. 

PAGE 

Suckling and Ben Jonson.— Curious Instance of Variability in 
Moral Opinion — Pope's Tradition of Sir John Suckling and the 
Cards — New Edition of Ben Jonson, and Samples of the Genius 
and Arrogance of that Writer, with a Summary of his Poetical 
Character .....'....... 194 

POPE, IN SOME LIGHTS IN WHICH HE IS NOT 
USUALLY REGARDED. 

Unfaded Interest of the Subject of Pope and Others— Shakspeare not 
equally at Home with modern Life, though more so with general 
Humanity— Letters of Pope— -A Wood-Engraving a Century ago 
— Pope with a young Lady in a Stage-Coach— Dining with Maids 
of Honour— Riding to Oxford by Moonlight— Lovability not de- 
pendent on Shape— Insincerity not always what it is taken for— 
Whigs, Tories, and Catholics — Masterly Exposition of the Reason 
why People live uncomfortably together—" Rondeaulx," and a 
Rondeau ............................ ...................................;... 203 

GARTH, PHYSICIANS, AND LOVE-LETTERS. 

Garth, and a Dedication to him by Steele— Garth, Pope, and Arbuth- 
not — Other Physicians in Connexion with Wit and Literature- 
Desirableness of a Selection from the less4mown Works of Steele, 
and of a Collection of real Love-Letters— Two beautiful Specimens 
from the Lover 215 

COWLEY AND THOMSON, 

Nature intended Poetry as well as Matter of Fact— Mysterious Anec- 
dote of Cowley— Remarkable Similarity between him and Thom- 
son—Their supposed Difference (as Tory and Whig)— Thomson's 
Behaviour to Lady Hertford — His Answer to the Genius-Starvation 
Principle—His Letters to his Friends, 8zc , 223 

BOOKSTALLS AND " GALATEO." 

Beneficence of Bookstalls — GalateOj or a Treatise on Politeness — 
Swift — Ill-breeding of Fashion— Curious Instance of Italian 
Delicacy of Reproof 231 



X CONTENTS. 

BOOKBINDING AND "HELIODORUS." 

PAGE 

A Rapture to the Memory of Mathias Corvinus, King and Bookbinder 
— Bookbinding good and bad — Ethiopics of Heliodorus— Striking 
Account of Raising a Dead Body 238 

VER-VERT ; OR, THE PARROT OF THE NUNS. 

Chapter I. — Introduction — Character and Manners of Yer-Vert. — His 
Popularity in the Convent, and the Life he led with the Nuns — 
Toilets and Looking-Glasses not unknown among those Ladies — 
Eour Canary Birds and two Cats die of Rage and Jealousy 244 

Chapter II. — Further Details respecting the Piety and Accomplish- 
ments of our Hero — Sister Melanie in the Habit of exhibiting 
them — A Visit from him is requested by the Nuns of the Visita- 
tion at Nantes — Consternation in the Convent — The Visit con- 
ceded — Agonies at his Departure , 248 

Chapter III. — Lamentable State of Manners in the Boat which carries 
our Hero down the Loire — He becomes corrupted — His biting the 
Nun that came to meet him — Ecstasy of the other Nuns on hearing 
of his Arrival 250 

Chapter the Last. —Admiration of the Parrot's new Friends con- 
verted into Astonishment and Horror — Ver-Vert keeps no 
Measures with his shocking Acquirements — The Nuns fly from 
him in Terror, and determine upon instantly sending him back, 
not, however, without Pity— His Return, and Astonishment of 
his old Friends — He is sentenced to solitary Confinement, which 
restores his Virtue — Transport of the Nuns, who kill him with 
Kindness 253 

SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 

No. I. — Paucity of Collections of our Female Poetry — Specimens of 
Anne Bullen, Queen Elizabeth, Lady Elizabeth Carew, Lady Mary 
Wroth, Katherine Philips, the Duchess of Newcastle, Anne Killi- 
grew, the Marchioness of Wharton, Mrs. Taylor, Aphra Behn, 
and the Countess of Winchelsea 257 

No. n. — Miss Vanhomrigh, Lady Russell, Mrs. Manly, Mrs. Brereton, 
Mrs. Greville, Lady Henrietta O'Neil, Duchess of Devonshire, 
Miss Carter, Charlotte Smith, Miss Seward, and Mrs. Tighe 269 

No. III. — Mrs. Hunter, Mrs. Barbauld, Lady Ann Barnard, and 

Hannah More 277 



CONTENTS. XI 

DUCHESS OF ST. ALBANS, AND MARRIAGES 
FROM THE STAGE. 

PAGE 

Comic Actors and Actresses more engaging to the Recollection than 
Tragic — Charles the Second and Nell Gwynn — Marriage of Harriet 
Mellon with the Duke of St. Albans and Mr. Coutts ; Marriages 
of Lucretia Bradshaw with Mr. Folkes, of Anastasia Robinson 
with Lord Peterborough, Beard the Singer with Lady Henrietta 
Herbert, Lavinia Fenton with the Duke of Bolton, Mary Wofhng- 
ton with Captain Cholmondeley, Signor Gallini the Dancer with 
Lady Elizabeth Bertie, O'Brien the Comedian with Lady Susan 
Fox, Elizabeth Linley with Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Elizabeth 
Farren with the Earl of Derby, Louisa Brunton with Earl Craven, 
Mary Catherine Bolton with Lord Thurlow — Remarks on Mar- 
riages from the Stage 287 

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 

An Account of her Life and Writings. — A Party of Wits and 
Beauties — Lady Louisa Stuart's Introductory Anecdotes — Lady 
Mary's Recommendation respecting Marriage — Her early Life and 
Studies — Marries Mr. Wortley — The Union not Happy— Her 
Introduction at Court, and curious Adventure there with Mr. 
Craggs — Accompanies her Husband in his Embassy to Constan- 
tinople — Excellence of her Letters from Turkey — Portraits of 
her — Conjugal Insignificance of Mr. Wortley — Pope's unfortunate 
Passion discussed — Lady Mary the Introducer of Inoculation into 
England — She separates from Mr. Wortley, and resides Abroad 
for twenty-two Years — Reason of that Sojourn — Her Addiction 
to Scandal — Morality of that Day — Question for Moral Progress 
— Alleged Conduct of Lady Mary Abroad — Her Return to her 
Native Country — Her last Days, and curious Establishment — 
Character of Wortley, jun. — Specimen of Lady Mary's Wit and 
good Writing ; and Summary of her Character 310 

LIFE AND AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 

Characteristics of Autobiography — Account of Pepys' Diary and 
Summary of his Life — His Voyage to Tangier, and Business in 
that Place — Character and Behaviour of its Governor, the " In- 
famous Colonel Kirke" — Pepys' Return to England — Gibbon's 
Ancestor, the Herald— Pepys and Lord Sandwich, &c. &c 346 



CONTEXTS* 
LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 

PAGJE 

Singular and fortunate Reputation of Madame de Sevigne — Unsatis- 
factory Biographies of her — Her Parentage, Education, and early 
Life — Description of her Person and Manners — United with the 
Marquis de Sevigne — His Frivolities and Death — Unsuccessful 
Love made to her by her Cousin Bussy Rabutin, who revenges 
himself by Calumny — Character and Conduct of Bussy — His 
Correspondence with his Cousin — His Account of the Effect pro- 
duced upon her by her Dancing with the King — The young 
Widow's Mode of Life— Her Visits at Court, and Observations of 
public Occurrences— Her Life in the Country — List and Charac- 
ters of her Associates' — Account of the Marquis her Son, and of 
her Correspondence with her Daughter, Madame de Grignan — 
Surviving Descendants of the Family— Specimens of Madame de 
Sevigne's Letters — Expected Marriage of Lauzun with Mademoi- 
selle — Strange Ways of Pomenars, and of Du Plessis — Story of 
the Footman who couldn't make Hay — Tragical Terminations of 
gay Campaigns — Brinvilliers and La Voisin, the Poisoners — 
Striking Catastrophe in a Ball-room — A Scene at Court — Splen- 
dour of Madame de Montespan — Description of an Iron-Foundry ; 
of a Gallop of Coaches ; of a great Wedding ; of a crowded 
Assembly — Horace Walpole's Account of Madame de Sevigne's 
House at Liviy — Character of her Writings by Sir James Mack- 
intosh — Attempt to form their true Estimate 368 




MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS. 



FICTION AND MATTER OF FACT. 

u There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."— Shakspeare. 

SYMPATHIES OF THESE TWO SUPPOSED INCOMPATIBLE THINGS — MISTAKE 
OF NEWTON — POETS NOT LIABLE TO SUCH MISTAKES — FALSE ALARM 
ABOUT SCIENCE BECOMING THE RUIN OF POETRY — IMAGINATION NOT 
TO BE LIMITED BY SECOND CAUSES— APOLOGUE ON THE PRESS. 

A passion for these two things is supposed to be incompatible. 
It is certainly not ; and the supposition is founded on an ignorance 
of the nature of the human mind, and the very sympathies of the 
two strangers. Mathematical truth is not the only truth in the 
world. An unpoetical logician is not the only philosopher. Locke 
had no taste for fiction : he thought Blackmore as great a genius 
as Homer ; but this was a conclusion he could never have come 
to, if he had known his premises. Newton considered poetry as 
on a par with ''ingenious nonsense;" which was an error as 
great as if he had ranked himself with Tom D'Urfey, or made 
the apex of a triangle equal to the base of it. Newton has had 
good for evil returned him by " a greater than himself;" for the 
eye of imagination sees farther than the glasses of astronomy. I 
should say that the poets had praised their scorner too much, 
illustrious as he is, if it were not delightful to see that there is at 
least one faculty in the world which knows how to do justice to all 
the rest. Of all the universal privileges of poetry, this is one of 
the most peculiar, and marks her for what she is. The mathe- 
matician, the schoolman, the wit, the statesman, and the soldier, 

1 



2 FICTION AND MATTER OF FACT. 

may all be blind to the merits of poetry, and of one another ; but 
the poet, by the privilege which he possesses of recognizing every 
species of truth, is aware of the merits of mathematics, of 
learning, of wit, of politics, and of generalship. He is great in 
his own art, and he is great in his appreciation of that of others. 
And this is most remarkable in proportion as he is a poetical 
poet — a high lover of fiction. Milton brought the visible and the 
invisible together " on the top of Fiesole," to pay homage to 
Galileo ; and the Tuscan deserved it, for he had an insight into 
the world of imagination. I cannot but fancy the shade of 
Newton blushing to reflect that, among the many things which he 
professed to know not, poetry was omitted, of which he knew 
nothing. Great as he was, he indeed saw nothing in the face of 
nature but its lines and colours ; not the lines and colours of 
passion and sentiment included, but only squares and their dis- 
tances, and the anatomy of the rainbow. He thougnt the earth 
a glorious planet ; he knew it better than any one else, in its 
connexion with other planets ; and yet half the beauty of them 
all, that which sympathy bestows and imagination colours, was to 
him a blank. He took space to be the sensorium of the Deity 
(so noble a fancy could be struck out of the involuntary encounter 
between his intense sense of a mystery and the imagination he 
despised !) and yet this very fancy was but an escape from the 
horror of a vacuum, and a substitution of the mere consciousness 
of existence for the thoughts and images with which a poet would 
have accompanied it. He imagined the form of the house, and 
the presence of the builder ; but the life and the variety, the 
paintings, the imagery, and the music, — the loves and the joys, 
the whole riches of the place, the whole riches in the distance, the 
creations heaped upon creation, and the particular as well as 
aggregate consciousness of all this in the great mind of whose 
presence he was conscious, — to all this his want of imagination 
rendered him insensible. The Fairy Queen was to him a trifle ; 
the dreams of Shakspeare "ingenious nonsense." But courts 
were something, and so were the fashions there. When the name 
of the Deity was mentioned, he took off his hat ! * 

* Sir Isaac Newton rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, because he 
could not reconcile it to his arithmetic. The " French Prophets," not 
be.ng cognisable by the mathematics* were very near having him for a 
proselyte. His strength and his weakness were hardly equal in this 
distinction : but one of them, at least, serves to show how more than 
conventional his understanding was inclined to be, when taken out of its 



FICTION AND MATTER OF FACT, 3 

There are two worlds ; the world that we can measure with 
line and rule, and the world that we feel with our hearts and 
imaginations. To be sensible of the truth of only one of these, is 
to know truth but by halves. Milton said, that he " dared be 
known to think Spenser a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas." 
He did not say than Plato or Pythagoras, who understood the two 
spheres within our reach. Both of these, and Milton himself, 
were as great lovers of physical and political truth as any men ; 
but they knew that it was not all ; they felt much beyond, and 
they made experiments upon more. It is doubted by the critics, 
whether Chaucer's delight in the handling of fictions, or in the 
detection and scrutiny of a piece of truth, was the greater. 
Chaucer was a conscientious Reformer, which is a man who has a 
passion for truth ; and so was Milton. So, in his way, was 
Ariosto himself, and indeed most great poets ; part of the very 
perfection of their art, which is veri-similitude, being closely 
connected with their sense of truth in all things. But it is not 
necessary to be great, in order to possess a reasonable variety of 
perception. That nobody may despair of being able to indulge 
the two passions together, I can answer for them by my own 
experience. I can pass, with as much pleasure as ever, from the 
reading of one of Hume's Essays to that of the Arabian Nights, 
and vice versa ; and I think, the longer I live, the closer, if 
possible, will the union grow.* The roads are found to approach 
nearer, in proportion as we advance upon either ; and they both 
terminate in the same prospect. 

I am far from meaning that there is nothing real in either 
road. The path of matter of fact is as solid as ever ; but they 
who do not see the reality of the other, keep but a blind and 
prone beating upon their own surface. To drop the metaphor, 
matter of fact is our perception of the grosser and more external 
shapes of truth ; fiction represents the residuum and the mystery. 

only faculty ; and I do not presume to think that any criticism of mine 
can be thought even invidious against it. I do not deny the sun, because 
I deny that the sun has a right to deny the universe. I am writing upon 
Matter of Fact now myself, and Matter of Fact will have me say what I do. 
* It has done so. This Essay was written in the year 1824 ; and 
within the last few years I have had the pleasure of reading (besides 
poets) three different histories of Philosophy, histories of Home and 
England, some of the philosophy of Hume himself, much of Abraham 
Tucker's, all the novels of Fielding and Smollett (including Gil Bias), 
Mr. Lane's Arabian Nights, Don Quixote, a heap of English Memoirs, and 
the whole of the romances of Mrs. Radcliffe. 



4 FICTION AND MATTER OF FACT. 

To love matter of fact is to have a lively sense of the visible and 
immediate ; to love fiction is to have as lively a sense of the pos- 
sible and the remote. Now these two senses, if they exist at all, 
are of necessity as real, the one as the other. The only proof of 
either is in our perception. To a blind man, the most visible 
colours no more exist, than the hues of a fairy tale to a man 
destitute of fancy. To a man of fancy, who sheds tears over a 
tale, the chair in which he sits has no truer existence in its way, 
than the story that moves him. His being touched is his proof 
in both instances. 

But, says the mechanical understanding, modern discoveries 
have acquainted us with the cause of lightning and thunder, the 
nature of optical delusions, and fifty other apparent wonders; and 
therefore there is no more to be feigned about them. Fancy has 
done with them, at least with their causes ; and witches and 
will-o'-the-wisps being abolished, poetry is at a stand. The 
strong glass of science has put an end to the assumptions of 
fiction. 

This is a favourite remark with a pretty numerous set of 
writers ; and it is a very desperate one. It looks like reasoning \ 
and by a singular exercise of the very faculty which it asserts the 
death of, many persons take the look of an argument for the proof 
of it. Certainly, no observation can militate more strongly against 
existing matter of fact ; and this is the reason why it is made. 
The mechanical writers of verse find that it is no longer so easy 
to be taken for poets, because fancy and imagination are more 
than usually in request : so they would have their revenge, by 
asserting, that poetry is no longer to be written. 

"When an understanding of this description is told, that 
thunder is caused by a collision of clouds, and that lightning is a 
well-known result of electricity, there may be an end, if he 
pleases, of his poetry with him. He may, if he thinks fit, or if 
he cannot help it, no longer see anything in the lightning but the 
escape of a subtle fluid, or hear anything more noble in the 
thunder than the crack of a bladder of water. Much good may 
his ignorance do him. But it is not so with understandings of a 
loftier or a more popular kind. The wonder of children, and the 
lofty speculations of the wise, meet alike on a point, higher than 
he can attain to, and look over the threshold of the world. 
Mechanical knowledge is a great and a glorious tool in the hands 
of man, and will change the globe. But it will still leave 
untouched the invisible sphere above and about us ; still leave us 



FICTION AND MATTER OF FACT. 5 

all the great and all the gentle objects of poetry, — the heavens 
and the human heart, the regions of genii and fairies, the fanciful 
or passionate images that come to us from the seas, and from the 
flowers, and all that we behold. 

It is, in fact, remarkable, that the growth of science, and the 
re-appearance of a more poetical kind of poetry, have accom- 
panied one another. Whatever may be the difference of opinion 
as to the extent to which our modern poets have carried their 
success, their inclinations cannot be doubted. How is it, that 
poetical impulse has taken this turn in a generation pronounced 
to be so mechanical ? Whence has arisen among us this exceeding 
fondness for the fictions of the East, for solitary and fanciful 
reveries, for the wild taste of the Germans (themselves more 
scientific and wild than ever), and even for a new and more 
primitive use of the old Pagan mythology, so long and so 
mechanically abused by the Chloes and Yenuses of the French ? 
Politics may be thought a very unlikely cause for poetry, and it 
is so with mere politicians ; yet politics, pushed further than 
common, have been the cause of the new and greater impetus 
given to the sympathies of imagination ; for the more we know of 
any one ground of knowledge, the further we see into the general 
domains of intellect, if we are not mere slaves of the soil. A 
little philosophy, says Bacon, takes men away from religion ; a 
greater brings them round to it. This is the case with the 
reasoning faculty and poetry. We reason to a certain point, and 
are content with the discoveries of second causes. We reason 
farther, and find ourselves in the same airy depths as of old. 
The imagination recognizes its ancient field, and begins ranging 
about at will, doubly bent upon liberty, because of the trammels 
with which it has been threatened. 

Take the following Apologue. — During a wonderful period of 
the world, the kings of the earth leagued themselves together to 
destroy all opposition ; to root out, if they could, the very 
thoughts of mankind. Inquisition was made for blood. The 
ears of the grovelling lay in wait for every murmur. On a 
sudden, during this great hour of danger, there arose in a hun- 
dred parts of the world, a cry, to which the cry of the Blatant 
Beast was a whisper. It proceeded from the wonderful multipli- 
cation of an extraordinary creature, which had already turned the 
cheeks of the tyrants pallid. It groaned and it grew loud : it 
spoke with a hundred tongues ; it grew fervidly on the ear, like 
the noise of millions of wheels. And the sound of millions of 



6 FICTION AND MATTER OF FACT. 

wheels was in it, together with other marvellous and awful noises. 
There was the sharpening of swords, the braying of trumpets, 
the neighing of war-horses, the laughter of solemn voices, the 
rushing by of lights, the movement of impatient feet, a tread as 
if the world were coming. And ever and anon there were pauses 
with " a still small voice," which made a trembling in the night- 
time. But still the glowing sound of the wheels renewed itself; 
gathering early towards the morning. And when you came up to 
one of these creatures, you saw, with fear aud reverence, its 
mighty conformation, being like wheels indeed, and a great vapour. 
And ever and anon the vapour boiled, and the wheels went rolling, 
and the creature threw out of its mouth visible words, that fell 
into the air by millions, and spoke to the uttermost parts of the 
earth. And the nations (for it was a loving though a fearful 
creature) fed upon its words like the air they breathed : and the 
monarchs paused, for they knew their masters. 

This is Printing by Steam. — It will be] said that it is an 
allegory, and that all allegories are but fictions, and flat ones. I 
am far from producing it as a specimen of the poetical power now 
in existence. Allegory itself is out of fashion, though it was a 
favourite exercise of our old poets, when the public were familiar 
with shows and spectacles. But allegory is the readiest shape 
into which imagination can turn a thing mechanical ; and in the 
one before us is contained the mechanical truth and the spiritual 
truth of that very matter-of-fact thing called a Printing Press : 
each of them as true as the other, or neither could take place. 
A business of screws and iron wheels is, or appears to be, a very 
common-place matter; but not so the will of the hand that sets 
them in motion ; not so the operations of the mind that directs 
them what to utter. We are satisfied respecting the one by 
science ; but what is it that renders us sensible of the wonders 
of the other, and their connection with the great mysteries of 
nature ? Thought — Fancy — Imagination. What signifies to her 
the talk about electricity, and suction, and gravitation, and alem- 
bics, and fifty other mechanical operations of the marvellous ? 
This is but the bone and muscle of wonder. Soul, and not body, 
is her pursuit ; the first cause, not the second ; the whole effect, 
not a part of it ; the will, the invention, the marvel itself. As 
long as this lies hidden, she still fancies what agents for it she 
pleases. The science of atmospherical phenomena hinders not 
her angels from " playing in the plighted clouds." The analysis 
of a bottle of salt water does not prevent her from " taking the 



FICTION AND MATTER OF FACT. 7 

wings of the morning, and remaining in the uttermost parts of 
the sea." You must prove to her first, that you understand the 
simple elements, when decomposed ; the reason that brings them 
together ; the power that puts them in action ; the relations which 
they have to a thousand things besides ourselves and our wants ; 
the necessity of all this perpetual motion ; the understanding that 
looks out of the eye ; love, joy, sorrow, death and life, the future, 
the universe, the whole invisible abyss. Till you know all this, 
and can plant the dry sticks of your reason, as trophies of pos- 
session, in every quarter of space, how shall you oust her from 
her dominion ? 



( 8 ) 



THE INSIDE OF AN OMNIBUS. 

ELEVATION OF SOCIETY BY THIS SPECIES OF VEHICLE — METAMORPHOSIS 
OF DR. JOHNSON INTO AN OMNIBUS — HIS DIALOGUE THERhON WITH 
BOSWELL — VARIOUS PASSENGERS IN OMNIBUSES — INTENSE INTIMACY 

WITH THE FACE OF THE MAN OPPOSITE YOU BOYS AND YOUNG 

LADIES — OLD GENTLEMEN UNABLE TO PULL UP THE GLASS YOUNG 

GENTLEMEN EMBARRASSED WITH EATING AN ORANGE — EXHIBITION 
OF CHARACTERS AND TEMPERS — LADIES OBLIGED TO SIT ON GENTLE- 
MEN'S LAPS — LAS1 PASSENGERS AT NIGHT. 

Enough has been said, in this quick and graphic age, respecting 
coachmen and cabmen, and conductors, and horses, and all the 
exterior phenomena of things vehicular ; but we are not aware 
that an " article " has yet been devoted to the subject before us. 

Come, then, our old friend Truth ! do what thou canst for us. 
If thou dost not, we know, that with all our trying, we can do 
nothing for ourselves. Men will have nothing to do with our 
representations, though we paint for them the prettiest girl inj;he 
world, — unlike ! 

By the invention of the Omnibus, all the world keeps its 
coach ! — And with what cheapness ! And to how much social 
advantage ! No " plague with servants ;" — no expense for liveries ; 
— no coach-makers' and horse-doctors' bills ; — no keeping one's 
fellow-creatures waiting for us in the cold night-time and rain, 
while the dance is going down the room, or another hour is spent 
in bidding good-by, and lingering over the comfortable fire. We 
have no occasion to think of it at all till we want it ; and then it 
either comes to one's door, or you go forth, and in a few minutes 
see it hulling up the street, — the man-of-war among coaches, — 
the whale's back in the metropolitan flood, — while the driver is 
beheld sitting, super-eminent, like the guide of the elephant on 
his neck. 

\\ e cannot say much for the beauty of the omnibus ; but there 
is a certain might of utility in its very bulk, which supersedes 
the necessity of beauty, as in the case of the whale itself, or in 
the idea that we entertain of Dr. Johnson, who shouldered 



THE INSIDE OF AN OMNIBUS. VJ 

porters as he went, and " laughed like a rhinoceros." Yirgil 
metamorphosed ships into sea-nymphs. The Doctor, by a process 
not more violent, might be supposed transformed into a vehicle 
for his favourite London streets ; and, if so, he would undoubtedly 
have anticipated the date of the present invention, and become 
an omnibus. His mouth seems to utter the word. 

Boswell (in Elysium). — " Sir, if you were living now, and 
were to be turned into a coach, what sort of coach would you 
become ?" 

Johnson {rolling about, and laughing with bland contempt). — 
" Sir, in parliamentary language, you are ' frivolous and vexatious;' 
but the frivolity surmounts the vexatiousness." 

Boswell (tenderly). — " Nay, sir, but to oblige an humble, 
and, I hope, not altogether undeserving friend." 

Johnson. — " Sir, where reply is obvious, interrogation is dis- 
gusting. Nay, sir (seeing the tears in BosweiVs eyes), I would not 
be harsh or uncomplying ; but do you not see the case at once ? 
I should formerly have chosen to be a bishop's carriage perhaps, 
or a chancellor's, or any respectable lord's." 

Boswell (smiling). — " Except a lord mayor's." 
Johnson (angrily). — " And why, sir, should I not have been 
a lord mayor's ? What have I done, that it should be doubted 
whether I would countenance the dignity of integrity and the 
universality of commerce ? " 

Boswell (in confusion). — " Sir, I beg pardon ; but to confess 
the truth, I was thinking of Miv Wilkes." 

Johnson. — "And why, sir, think of Mr. W 7 ilkes, when the 
smaller idea should be merged into the greater ? when the great 
office itself is concerned, and not the pettiness of an exception ? 
Besides, sir, Wilkes, though a rascal and a Whig, was a gentle- 
man in manners, as well as birth (looking sternly at Boswell). 
He would not have made such a remark. — To be sure (relenting a 
little, and looking arch) he got drunk sometimes." 

Boswell (interrupting). — " Dear sir ! " 

Johnson. — " Neither was he scrupulous in his admiration of 
beauty." 

Boswell.—" Dearest sir !- " 

Johnson. — " Though whatsoever the frenzy of his inebriation, 
or the vagrancy of his nocturnal revels, he would hardly have 
mistaken an oyster-woman for a Hebe. Well, well, sir, let us be 
mutually considerate. Let us be decent. To cut this matter 
short, sir, I should be an omnibus " 



10 THE INSIDE OF AN OMNIBUS. 

Boswell (with grateful earnestness), — " May I presume, dear 
sir, to inquire the reason ?" 

Johnson. — " Sir, I should not be a cart. That would be low. 
Neither should I aspire to be the triumphant chariot of an 
Alexander, or the funeral car of a Napoleon. Posthumous know- 
ledge has corrected those sympathies with ambition. A gig is 
pert ; a curricle coxcombical ; and the steam- carriage is too 
violent, perturbed, and migratory. Sir, the omnibus for me. It 
suits with my past state and my present ; with the humanities I 
have retained, and with those which I have acquired. Sir, it even 
makes me beg pardon for what I have said of Wilkes. Mors 
omnibus communis. Like death, it is common to all, and gathers 
them into its friendly bosom. It is decent, deliberate, and un- 
pretending ; no respecter of persons ; a king has been known to 
ride in it ; * and opposite i the king may have sat a republican 
weaver." 

Boswell.- — "But you would choose, sir, to be a London 
omnibus, rather than a Parisian one, or even a Litchfield ? " 

Johnson (with bland indulgence). — " Surely, sir ; and to go 
up the Strand and Fleet- street, and occasionally to stop at the 
Mitre. And, sir, I would not be driven by everybody, though I 
can now tolerate everybody. I would have a humane and 
respectable driver ; an elderly man, sir ; — and my windows should 
be taken care of, that the people might not catch cold." 

Here Boswell, begging a thousand pardons, with shrugged 
shoulders, lifted eyebrows, and hands spread out in deprecation of 
offence, bursts, nevertheless, into an incontrollable fit of laughter, 
at the idea of the solemn and illustrious Johnson converted into 
an omnibus. And the Doctor, though a little angry at first, 
recollects his Elysian experiences, and at length contributes to a 
roar worthy of the inextinguishable laughter of the gods in 
Homer. 

Johnson (subsiding into a human measure of joviality). — 
" Sir, it was ludicrous enough, if you consider it as a man ; but 
if you consider it as a child, or as a divine person (to speak in 
the language of our new friend, Plato), the subject will be invested 
with the mild gravity of an impartial universality. I see, how- 
ever, that it will take many more draughts of Lethe, before j'ou, 
Boswell, can get the fumes of the old tavern wine oat of your 
head ; so let us consult your capabilities, and return to human 

* So it has been said of Louis Philippe, during his " citizen-king " days. 



THE INSIDE OF AN OMNIBUS, 11 

measures of discourse ; — let us Lave reason once more, sir ; — sir 
(for I see you wish me to say it), let us be good mortal jolly 
dogs, and have t' other bottle." 

Vanish the ever pleasant shades of Johnson and Boswell, and 
enter the Omnibus in its own proper person. If a morning omnibus, 
it is full of clerks and merchants ; if a noon, of chance fares ; if 
a night, of returning citizens and fathers of families ; if a mid- 
night, of play-goers, and gentlemen lax with stiff glasses of 
brandy- and- water . 

Being one of the chance fares, we enter an omnibus which 
has yet no other inside passenger ; and having no book with us, 
we make intense acquaintance with two objects : the one being 
the heel of an outside passenger's boot, who is sitting on the 
coach-top ; and the other, that universally studied bit of litera- 
ture, which is inscribed at the further end of every such vehicle, 
and which purports, that it is under the charming jurisdiction of 
the royal lady now reigning over us, 

v. R. 

by whom it is permitted to carry " twelve inside passengers, and 
no more ; " thus showing extreme consideration on her Majesty's 
part, and that she will not have the sides of her loving subjects 
squeezed together like figs. 

Enter a precise personage, probably a Methodist, certainly 
" well off," who seats himself right in the midway of his side of 
the Omnibus ; that is to say, at equal distances between the two 
extremities ; because it is the spot in which you least feel the 
inconvenience of the motion. He is a man who seldom makes a 
remark, or takes notice of what is going forward, unless a pay- 
ment is to be resisted, or the entrance of a passenger beyond the 
lawful number. Now and then he hems, and adjusts a glove ; or 
wipes a little dust off one of the cuffs of his coat. 

In leaps a youngster, and seats himself close at the door, in 
order to be ready to leap out again. 

Item, a maid- servant, flustered with the fear of being too late, 
and reddening furthermore betwixt awkwardness, and the resent- 
ment of it, at not being quite sure where to seat herself. A jerk 
of the Omnibus pitches her against the precisian, and makes both 
her and the youngster laugh. 

Enter a young lady, in colours and big earrings, and exces- 
sively flounced and ringleted, and seats herself opposite the maid- 
servant, who beholds her with admiration, but secretly thinks 



12 THE INSIDE OF AN OMNIBUS. 

herself handsomer, and what a pity it is she was not a lady 
herself, to become the ringlets and flounces better. 

Enter two more young ladies, in white, who pass to the other 
end in order to be out of the way of the knees and boots of those 
who quit. They whisper and giggle much, and are quizzing the 
youDg lady in the reds and ringlets ; who, for her part (though she 
knows it, and could squeeze all their bonnets together for rage), 
looks as firm and unconcerned as a statue. 

Enter a dandy, too handsome to be quizzed ; and then a man 
with a bundle, who is agreeably surprised with the gentlemanly 
toleration of the dandy, and unaware of the secret disgust of the 
Methodist. 

Item, an old gentleman ; then, a very fat man ; then, two 
fat elderly women, one of whom is very angry at the incommo- 
dious presence of her counterparts, while the other, full of good 
humour, is comforted by it. The youngster has in the mean- 
time gone to sit on the coach-top, in order to make room ; and 
we set off to the place of our destination. 

What an intense intimacy we get with the face, neckcloth, 
waistcoat, and watch-chain of the man who sits opposite us ! 
Who is he ? What is his name ? Is his care a great care, 
— an affliction ? Is his look of cheerfulness real ? At length 
he looks at ourselves, asking himself, no doubt, similar ques- < 
tions ; and, as it is less pleasant to be scrutinized than to 
scrutinize, we now set him the example of turning the eyes 
another way. How unpleasant it must be to the very fat man to 
be so gazed at ! Think, if he sat as close to us in a private 
room, in a chair ! How he would get up, and walk away ! But 
here, sit he must, and have his portrait taken by our memories. 
We sigh for his plethora, with a breath almost as piteous as his 
wheezing. And he has a sensible face withal, and has, perhaps, 
acquired a painful amount of intellectual as well as physical 
knowledge, from the melancholy that has succeeded to his joviality. 
Fat men always appear to be •' good fellows," unless there is 
some manifest proof to the contrary ; so we wish, for his sake, 
that everybody in this world could do just as he pleased, and die 
of a very dropsy of delight. 

Exeunt our fat friend, and the more ill-humoured of the two 
fat women ; and enter, in their places, two young mothers, — one 
with a good-humoured child, a female ; the other with a great, 
handsome, red-cheeked wilful boy, all flounce and hat and 
feathers, and red legs, who is eating a bun, and who seems 



THE INSIDE OF AN OMNIBUS. 13 

resolved that the other child, who does nothing but look at it, 
shall not partake a morsel. His mother, who " snubs " him one 
instant, and lets him have his way the next, has been a spoiled 
child herself, and is doing her best to learn to repent the sorrow 
she caused her own mother, by the time she is a dozen years 
older. The elderly gentleman compliments the boy on his like- 
ness to his mamma, who laughs and says he is " very polite." 
As to the young gentleman, he fancies he is asked for a piece of 
his bun, and falls a-kicking ; and the young lady in the ringlets 
tosses her head. 

Exit the Methodist, and enter an affable man ; who, having 
protested it is very cold, and lamented a stoppage, and vented 
the original remark that you gain nothing by an omnibus in point 
of time, subsides into an elegant silence ; but he is fastened upon 
by the man with the bundle, who, encouraged by his apparent 
good-nature, tells him, in an under-tone, some anecdotes relative 
to his own experience of omnibuses ; which the affable gentleman 
endures with a variety of assenting exclamations, intended quite 
as much to stop as to encourage, not one of which succeeds ; 
such as " Ah " — " Oh "— " Indeed " — " Precisely " — " I dare- 
say "— " I see "— " Really ? ,? — " Very likely ; "—jerking the 
top of his stick occasionally against his mouth as he speaks, and 
nobody pitying him. 

Meantime the good-humoured fat woman having expressed a 
wish to have a window closed which the ill-humoured one had 
taken upon her to open, and the two young ladies in the corner 
giving their assent, but none of the three being able to pull it up, 
the elderly gentleman, in an ardour of gallantry, anxious to show 
his pleasing combination of strength and tenderness, exclaims, 
" Permit me; " and jumping up, cannot do it at all. The window 
cruelly sticks fast. It only brings up all the blood into his face 
with the mingled shame and incompetence of the endeavour. He 
is a conscientious kind of incapable, however, is the elderly 
gentleman ; so he calls in the conductor, who does it in an instant. 
" He knows the trick," says the elderly gentleman. "It's only 
a little bit new," says the conductor ; who hates to be called in. 

Exeunt elderly and the maid-servant, and enter an unre- 
flecting young gentleman who has bought an orange and must eat 
it immediately. He accordingly begins by peeling it, and is first 
made aware of the delicacy of his position by the gigglement of 
the two young ladies, and his doubt where he shall throw the 
peel. "He is in for it," however, and must proceed; so being 



14 THE INSIDE OF AN OMNIBUS. 

unable to divide. the orange into its segments, he ventures upon a 
great liquid bite, which resounds through the omnibus, and covers 
the whole of the lower part of his face with pip and drip. The 
young lady with the ringlets is right before him. The two other 
youug ladies stuff their handkerchiefs into their mouths, and he, 
into his own mouth, the whole of the rest of the fruit, " sloshy " 
and too big, with desperation in his heart, and the tears in his eyes. 
Never will he eat an orange again in an omnibus. He doubts 
whether he shall even venture upon one at all in the presence of 
his friends, the Miss Wilkinsons. 

Enter, at various times, an irascible gentleman, who is con- 
stantly threatening to go out ; a long-legged dragoon, at whose 
advent the young ladies are smit with sudden gravity and apparent 
objection ; a young sailor, with a face innocent of everything but 
a pride in his slops, who says his mother does not like his going 
to sea ; a gentleman with a book, which we long to ask him to 
let us look at ; a man with a dog, which embitters the feet and 
ankles of a sharp -visaged old lady, and completes her horror by 
getting on the empty seat next her, and looking out of the 
window ; divers bankers' clerks and tradesmen, who think of 
nothing but the bills in their pockets ; two estranged friends, 
ignoring each other ; a pompous fellow, who suddenly looks 
modest and bewitched, having detected a baronet in the corner ; 
a botanist with his tin herbarium; a young married couple, 
assuming a right to be fond in public ; another from the country, 
who exalt all the rest of the passengers in self- opinion by 
betraying the amazing fact, that they have never before seen 
Piccadilly ; a footman, intensely clean in his habiliments, and 
very respectful, for his hat subdues him, as well as the strange 
feeling of sitting inside ; four boys going to school, very pudding- 
faced, and not knowing how to behave (one pulls a string and top 
half-way out of his pocket, and all reply to questions in mono- 
syllables) ; a person with a constant smile on his face, having 
just cheated another in a bargain ; close to him a very melan- 
choly person, going to see a daughter on her deathbed, and not 
hearing a single one of the cheater's happy remarks ; a French 
lady looking at once amiable and worldly, — hard, as it were, in 
the midst of her softness, or soft in the midst of her hardness, — 
which you will, — probably an actress, or a teacher ; two immense- 
whiskered Italians, uttering their delicious language with a pre- 
cision which shows that they are singers ; a man in a smock- 
frock, who, by his sitting on the edge of the seat, and perpetually 



THE INSIDE OF AN OMNIBUS. 15 

watching his time to go out, seems to make a constant apology 
for his presence ; ditto, a man with some huge mysterious accom- 
paniment of mechanism, or implement of trade, too big to be 
lawfully carried inside ; a pedant or a fop, ostentatious of some 
ancient or foreign language, or talking of a lord. ; all sorts of 
people talking of the weather, and the harvest, and the Queen, 
and the last bit of news ; in short, every description of age, rank, 
temper, occupation, appearance, life, character, and behaviour, 
from the thorough gentleman who quietly gives himself a lift out 
of the rain, secure in his easy unaffected manner, and his accom- 
modating good-breeding, clown to the blackguard who attempts to 
thrust his opinion down the throat of his neighbour, or keeps his 
leg thrust out across the door-way, or lets his umbrella drip 
against a sick child. 

Tempers are exhibited most at night, because people by that 
time have dined and drunk, and finished their labours, and because 
the act of going home serves to bring out the domestic habit. 
You do not then, indeed, so often see the happy fatigue, delighted 
with the sudden opportunity of rest ; nor the anxious look, as if 
it feared its journey's end ; nor the bustling one, eager to get 
there. The seats are most commonly reckoned upon, and more 
allowance is made for delays ; though some passengers make a 
point of always being in a state of indignation and iil-treatment, 
and express an impatience to get home, as if their house were a 
paradise (which is assuredly what it is not, to those who expect 
them there). But at night, tongues are loosened, wills and 
pleasures more freely expressed, and faces rendered less bashful 
by the comparative darkness. It is then that the jovial " old 
boy " lets out the secret of his having dined somewhere, perhaps 
at some Company's feast in Goldsmiths' or Stationers' Hall ; and 
it is with difficulty he hinders himself from singing. Then the 
arbitrary or the purse-proud are wrathful if they are not driven 
up to the identical inch of curb-stone, fronting their door. Then 
the incontinent nature, heedless of anything but its own satisfac- 
tion, snores in its corner ; then politicians are loud ; and gay 
fellows gallant, especially if they are old and ugly ; and lovers, 
who seem unconscious of one another's presence, are intensely 
the reverse. Then also the pickpocket is luckiest at his circum- 
ventions ; and the lady, about to pay her fare, suddenly misses 
her reticule. Chiefly now also, sixpences, nay, purses, are missed 
in the straw, and lights are brought to look for them, and the con- 
ductor is in an agonizing perplexity whether to pronounce the 



16 THE INSIDE OF AN OMNIBUS. 

loser an impudent cheat, or to love him for being an innocent and 
a ninny. Finally, now is the time when selfishness and generosity 
are most exhibited. It rains, and the coach is fall ; a lady applies 
for admittance ; a gentleman offers to go outside ; and, according 
to the natures of the various passengers, he is despised or 
respected accordingly. It rains horribly; a " young woman" 
applies for admittance ; the coach is overstocked already ; a 
crapulous fellow who has been allowed to come in by special 
favour, protests against the exercise of the like charity to a 
female (we have seen it!), and is secretly detested by the least 
generous; a similar gentleman to the above, offers to take the 
applicant on his knee, if she has no objection ; and she enters 
accordingly, and sits. — Is she pretty ? — Is she ugly ? — Above all, 
is she good-humoured? A question of some concern, even to 
the least interested of knee-givers. On the other hand, is the 
gentleman young or old, pleasant or disagreeable ; a real gentle- 
man, or only a formal " old frump," who has hardly a right to be 
civil ? At length the parties get a look at one another, the 
gentleman first, the young woman suddenly from under her bonnet. 
— Ought she to have looked at all ? — And what is the particular 
retrospective expression which she instinctively chooses out of 
many, when she has looked ? It is a nice question, varying 
according to circumstances. — " Making room " for a fair inter- 
loper is no such dilemma as that ; though we may be allowed to 
think, that the pleasure is greatly enhanced by the pleasantness 
of the countenance. It is astonishing how much grace is put, 
even into the tip of an elbow, by the turn of an eye. 

There is a reflection which all omnibus passengers are agreed 
upon, and which every one of them perhaps has made, without 
exception, in the course of their intellectual reciprocities ; which 
is, that omnibuses are "very convenient;" — "an astonishing 
accommodation to the public:" — not quick, — save little time (as 
aforesaid), — and the conductors are very tiresome ; but a most 
useful invention, and wonderfully cheap. There are also certain 
things which almost all omnibus passengers do ; such as help 
ladies to and fro ; gradually get nearer to the door whenever a 
vacant seat occurs, so as to force the new comer further up than 
he likes ; and all people stumble, forward or sideways, when they 
first come in, and the coach sets off before they are seated. 
Among the pleasures, are seeing the highly satisfied faces of 
persons suddenly relieved from a long walk ; being able to read a 
book ; and, occasionally, observing one of a congenial sort in the 



THE INSIDE OF AN OMNIBUS. 17 

hands of a fellow-passenger. Among the evils, are dirty boots 
and wetting umbrellas ; broken panes of glass in bad weather, 
afflicting the napes of the necks of invalids ; and fellows who 
endeavour to convenience themselves at everybody's expense, by 
taking up as much room as possible, and who pretend to alter 
their oblique position when remonstrated with, without really 
doing it. Item, cramps in the leg, when thrusting it excessively 
backwards underneath the seat, in making way for a new comer, 
— the patient thrusting it forth again with an agonized vivacity, 
that sets the man opposite him laughing. Item, cruel treadings 
upon corns, the whole being of the old lady or gentleman seeming 
to be mashed into the burning foot, and the sufferer looking in an 
ecstasy of tormented doubt whether to be decently quiet or mur- 
derously vociferous, — the inflictor, meanwhile, thinking it suffi- 
cient to say, "Very sorry," in an indifferent tone of voice, and* 
taking his seat with an air of luxurious complacency. Among 
the pleasures also, particularly in going home at night, must not 
be forgotten the having the omnibus finally to yourself, re-adjust- 
ing yourself in a corner betwixt slumbering and waking, and 
throwing up your feet on the seat opposite ; though, as the will 
becomes piqued in proportion to its luxuries, you always regret 
that the seats are not w T ider, and that you cannot treat your hat, 
on cold nights, as freely as if it were a nightcap. 

The last lingerers on these occasions (with the exception of 
play-goers) are apt to be staid suburb-dwelling citizens, — sitters 
with hands crossed upon their walking-sticks. — men of parcels 
and eatables, breakers of last baskets of oranges, chuckling over 
their bargains. There's one in the corner, sleeping, — the last of 
the dwellers in Paddington. To deposit him at his door is the 
sole remaining task of the conductor. He wakes up ; hands forth 
a bag of apples, — a tongue, — a bonnet, and four pairs of ladies' 
shoes. A most considerate spouse and " papa " is he, and a 
most worthy and flourishing hosier. Venerable is his lax throat 
in his bit of white neckcloth (he has never taken to black) ; but 
jovially also he shakes his wrinkles, if you talk of the stationer's 
widow, or the last city feast. 

" Don't drop them ladies' shoes, Tom," says he, chuckling; 
" they'll be worn out before their time." 

" Wery expensive, I believe, sir, them 'ere kind o' shoes," 
says Tom. 

"Very; — oh, sadly. And no better than paper. But men 
well-to-do in the world can't live as cheap as poor ones." 

2 



18 THE INSIDE OF AN OMNIBUS. 

Tom thinks this a very odd proposition ; but it does not 
disconcert him. Nothing disconcerts a conductor, except a 
passenger without a sixpence. 

" True, sir," says Tcm ; " it's a hard case to be forced to 
spend one's money ; but then you know — I beg pardon " (with a 
tone of modest deference and secret contempt), " it's much harder, 
as they say, where there's none to spend." 

" Hah ! Ha, ha ! Why, yes, eh ? " returns the old gentle- 
man, again chuckling ; " so there's your sixpence, Tom, and 
good-night." 

" Good-night, sir." And up jumps Tom on the coach-box, 

where he amuses the driver with an account of the dirt which the 

hosier has got from the coach-wheel without his knowing it ; and 

off they go to a far less good supper, but, it must be added, a 

•much better sleep, than the rich old citizen. 



( 19 ) 



THE DAY OF THE 
DISASTEES OF CAEFINGTON BLUNDELL, ESQUIEE. 

DESCRIPTION OP A PENURIOUS INDEPENDENT GENTLEMAN, FOND OF 
INVITATIONS AND THE GREAT — HE TAKES HIS WAY TO A " DINING- 
OUT" — HIS CALAMITIES ON THE ROAD — AND ON HIS RETURN. 

Carfington Blundell, Esquire, aged six-and-thirty, but appa- 
rently a dozen years older, was a spare, well-dressed, sickly- 
looking, dry sort of leisurely individual, of respectable birth, very 
small income, and no abilities. He was the younger son of the 
younger son of a younger brother.; and not being able to marry a 
fortune (which once, they say, nearly made him die for love), and 
steering clear, with a provoking philosophy, of the corkscrew curls 
and pretty staircase perplexities of the young ladies of lodging- 
houses, contrived to live in London upon the rent of half a dozen 
cottages in Berkshire. 

Having, in fact, no imagination, Carfington Blundell, Esquire, 
had no sympathies, except with the wants and wishes of that 
interesting personage, Carfington Blundell, Esquire — of whom he 
always bore about with him as lively an image in his brain as it 
was possible for it to possess, and with whom, when other people 
were of the least consequence to his inclinations, he was astonished 
that the whole world did not hasten to sympathize. On every 
other occasion, the only thing which he had to do with his fellow- 
creatures, all and every of them, was, he thought, to leave them 
alone ; — an excellent principle, as far as concerns their own wish 
fo be so left, but not quite so much so in the reverse instances ; 
such, for example, as when they have fallen into ditches, or want 
to be paid their bills, or have a turn for delicate attentions, or 
under any other circumstances which induce people to suppose 
that you might as well do to them as you would be done by. 
Mr. Blundell, it is true, was a regular payer of his bills ; and 
though, agreeably to that absorption of himself in the one interest- 
ing idea above mentioned, he was not famous for paying delicate 
attentions, except where he took a fancy to having them paid to 



20 THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 

himself ; yet, provided the morning was not very cold or muddy, 
and he had a stick with him for the individual to lay hold of, and 
could reckon upon using it without soiling his shoes, or straining 
his muscles, the probability is, that he might have helped a man 
out of a ditch. As people, however, are not in the habit of fall- 
ing into ditches, especially about Regent Street, and as it was not 
easy to conjecture in what other instances Mr. Blundell might 
have deemed it fitting to evince a sense of the existence of any- 
thing but his own coat and waistcoat, muffins, mutton cutlet, and 
bed, certain it is, that the sympathies of others were anything but 
lively towards himself ; and they would have been less so, if the 
only other intense idea which he had in his head, to wit, that of 
his birth and connexions (which he pretty freely overrated), 
had not instinctively led him to hit upon the precise class of 
acquaintances to whom his insipidity could have been welcome. 

These acquaintances, with whom he dined frequently (and 
breakfasted too), were rich men, of a grade a good deal lower 
than himself; and to such of these as had not " unexpectedly left 
town," he gave a sort of a quiet, particular, just-enough kind of a 
lodging-house dinner once a year, the shoeblack in gloves assist- 
ing the deputy under- waiter from the tavern. The friends out of 
town he paid with regrets at their " lamented absence ;" and the 
whole of them he would have thought amply recompensed, even 
without his giving into this fond notion of the necessity of a 
dinner on his part, by the fact of his eating their good things, 
and talking of his fifth- cousin the Marquis ; a personage, by the 
way, who never heard of him. He did, indeed, once contrive to 
pick up the Marquis's glove at the opera, and to intimate at the 
same time that his name was Blundell ; upon which the noble 
lord, staring somewhat, but good-humouredly smiling withal, said, 
" Much obliged to you, Mr. Bungle." As to his positive insipidity 
over the hock and pineapples of his friends, Mr. Blundell never 
dreamt of such a thing ; and if he happened to sit next to any 
wit, or other lion of the day, who seemed of consequence enough 
to compete with the merits of his presence, he thought it amply 
set off by his taste in having had such ancestors, and indeed in 
simply being that identical Mr. Blundell, who, in having no merits 
at all, was gifted by the kind providence of nature with a pro- 
portionate sense of his enjoying a superabundance of them. 

To complete the idea of him in the reader's mind, his manners 
were gentlemanly, except that they betrayed now and then too 
nice a sense of his habiliments. His hat he always held in the 



THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C; BLUNDELL, ESQ* 21 

best way adapted to keep it in shape ; and a footman coming once 
too softly into a room where he was waiting during a call, detected 
him in the act of dusting his boots with an extra coloured hand- 
kerchief, which he always carried about with him for that purpose. 
He calculated, that with allowance for changes in the weather, it 
saved him a good four months' coach-hire. 

Such was the accomplished individual, who, in the month of 
May, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and 
twenty- seven, and in a "fashionable dress of the first water " (as Sir 
Phelim called it), issued forth from his lodgings near St. James's, 
drawing the air through his teeth with an elegant indifference, 
coughing slightly at intervals out of emotion, and, to say the 
truth, as happy as coat and hat, hunger, a dinner-party, and a 
fine day could make him. Had the weather been in the smallest 
degree rainy, or the mansion for which he was bound at any 
distance, the spectators were to understand that he would have 
come in his own carriage, or at least that he intended to call a 
coach ; but as the day was so very fine, and he kept looking at 
every door that he passed, as though each were the one he was 
about to knock at, the conclusion to be drawn was, that having 
but a little way to go, and possessing a high taste for superiority 
to appearances, it was his pleasure to go on foot. Vulgar wealth 
might be always making out its case. Dukes and he could afford 
to dispense with pretension. 

The day w T as beautiful, the sky blue, the air a zephyr, the 
ground in that perfect state for walking (a day or two before dust) 
when there is a sort of dry moisture in the earth, and people in 
the -country prefer the road to the path. The house at which our 
hero w 7 as going to dine was midway between the west end and 
the north-east ; and he had just got half-way, and was in a very 
quiet street, when in the " measureless content" of his anticipa- 
tions he thought he would indulge his eyesight with one or two 
of those personal ornaments, the presence of which, on leaving 
the house, he always ascertained with sundry pattings of his 
waistcoat and coat pockets. Having, therefore, again assured 
himself that he had duly got his two pocket-handkerchiefs, his 
ring, his shirt-pin, his snuff-box, his watch, and his purse under 
his watch, he first took off a glove that he might behold the ring ; 
and then, with the ungloved hand, he took out the snuff-box, in 
order that he might as delicately contemplate the snuff-box. 

Now the snuff-box was an ancient but costly snuff-box, once 
the possession of his grandmother, who had it from her uncle, 



22 THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OP C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 

whose arms, flaming in or and gules, were upon the lid; and 
inside the lid was a most ingeniously contrived portrait of the 
uncle's lady, in a shepherdess's hat and powdered toupee, looking, 
or to he supposed to be looking, into an actual bit of looking- 
glass. 

Carfington Blundell, Esquire, in a transport of ease, hope, 
and ancestral elegance, and with that expression of countenance, 
the insipidity of which is bound to be in proportion to the inward 
rapture, took a pinch out of this hereditary amenity, and was in 
the act of giving a glance at his grand-aunt before he closed the 
lid, when a strange, respectably-dressed person, who seemed to 
be going somewhere in a great hurry, suddenly dashed against 
him ; and, uttering the words, " With pleasure,'' dipped his fin- 
gers into the box, and sent it, as Carfington thought, half-way 
across the street. 

Intense was the indignation, but at the same time highly con- 
siderate the movement, of Mr. Blundell ; who seeing the " imper- 
tinent beast" turn a corner, and hearing the sound of empty 
metal dancing over the street, naturally judged it better to secure 
the box, than derange his propriety further by an idle pursuit. 
Contenting himself, therefore, with sending an ejaculation after 
the vagabond to the purpose just quoted, and fixing his eye upon 
the affecting moveable now r stationary, he delicately stepped off 
the pavement towards it, with inward congratulation upon its not 
being muddy, when imagine his dismay and petrifaction, on 
lifting up, not the identical box, but one of the commonest order ! 
To be brief, it was of pewter ; and upon the lid of it, with after- 
dinner fork, was scratched a question, which, in the immediate 
state of Mr. Blundell's sensations, almost appeared to have a 
supernatural meaning; to wit, "How's your mother?" 

Had it been possible for a man of the delicacy of Mr. Blun- 
dell's life and proportions to give chase to a thief, or had he felt 
it of the least use to raise a hue-and-cry in a gentlemanly tone of 
voice — or, indeed, in any voice not incompatible with his character 
— doubtless he would bave done so with inconceivable swiftness ; 
but, as it was, he stood as if thunderstruck ; and, in an instant, 
there were a dozen persons about him, all saying — "What is it ? " 
"Which?" "Who?" 

Mr. Blundell, in his first emotions, hardly knew " what it 
was" himself: the "which" did not puzzle him quite so much, 
as often as he looked upon the snuff-box ; but the " who" he was 
totally at a loss to conjecture ; and so were his condolers. 



THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 23 

" What — was it that chap as run agin you," said one, " jist 
as I was coming in at t' other end of the street ? Lord love you ! 
you might as well run arter last year. He's a mile off by this 
time." 

" If the gentleman '11 give me a shilling," said a boy, " Vll 
run arter him." 

" Get out, you young dog," said the first speaker; " d' ye 
think the gentleman 's a fool ?" 

"It is a circumstance," said Mr. Blundell, grateful for this 
question, and attempting a breathless smile, " which — might 
have — surprised — anybody. ' ' 

"What so rt of a man was it?" emphatically inquired a 
judicious-looking person, jerking his face into Mr. Blundell's, and 
then bending his ear close to his, as though he were deaf. 

" I — declare," said Mr. Blundell, " that I can — hardly say, 
the thing was so very unexpected ; but — from the glimpse I had 
of him, I should — really say — he looked like a gentleman " — (here 
Mr. Blundell lifted up his eyebrows), — " not indeed a perfect gen- 
tleman." 

" I daresay not, sir," returned the judicious-looking person. 

" What is all this ?" inquired a loud individual, elbowing his 
way through. 

" A gentleman been robbed," said the boy, " by another 
gentleman." 

" Another gentleman ? " 

"Yes; not a perfect gentleman, he says; but highly re- 
spectable." 

Here, to the equal surprise and grief of the sufferer, the 
crowd laughed and began joking with one another. None but the 
juclicious-looking deaf individual seemed to keep his coun- 
tenance. 

" Well," quoth the loud man, "here's a policeman coming 
at the end of the street; the gentleman had better apply to 
him." 

" Yes, sir," said the deaf friend, " that 's your resource, and 
God bless you with it!" So saying, he grasped Mr. Blundell's 
hand with a familiarity more sympathizing than respectful ; and 
treading at the same time upon his toes in the most horrible 
manner, begged his pardon, and went away. 

Mr. Blundell stooped down, partly to rub his toes, and partly 
to hide his confusion, and the policeman came up. The matter 
was explained to the policeman, all the while he was hearing the 



24 THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 

sufferer, by a dozen voices, and the question was put, " What 
sort of a nian^vas it ?" 

" Here is a gentleman," said Mr. Blundell, " who saw him." 
The policeman looked about for the witness, but nobody 
answered ; and it was discovered, that all the first speakers had 
vanished, — loud man, boy, and all. 

" Have you lost anything else, sir ?" inquired the policeman. 
" Bless me!" said Mr. Blundell, turning very red, and 

feeling his pockets, " I really — positively I do fear — that " 

" You can remember, sir, what you had with you when you 
came out ?" 

" One handkerchief," continued Mr. Blundell, "has certainly 

gone ; and " 

" Your watch is safe," returned the policeman, " for it is 
hanging out of your waistcoat. Very lucky you fastened it. 
Have you got your purse, sir ?" 

" The purse was under the watch," breathed Mr. Blundell; 
" therefore I have no doubt that — but I regret to say — that I do 
not — feel my ring." 

A laugh, and cries of " Too bad ! " 

" A man shook your hand, sir," said the policeman; " did 
you not feel it then ?" 

"I did not, indeed," replied Mr. Blundell; " I felt nothing 
but the severity of the squeeze." 

" And you had a brooch, I perceive." 
The brooch was gone too. 

" Why don't you run arter him," cried a very little boy in an 
extremely high and loud voice, which set the crowd in a roar. 

The policeman, as speedily as he could, dispersed the crowd, 
and accompanied Mr. Blundell part of his way ; whither the 
latter knew not, for he walked along as if he had taken too much 
wine. Indeed, he already doubted whether he should proceed to 
recruit himself at his friend's table, or avoid the shame of telling 
his story, and return home. The policeman helped to allay his 
confusion a little by condolence, by promises of search, and 
accounts of daring robberies practised upon the most knowing; 
and our hero, in the gratitude of his heart, would have given him 
his card ; but he now found that his pocket-book was gone ! His 
companion rubbed his face to conceal a smile, and received with 
great respect an oral communication of the address. Mr. Blun- 
dell, to show that his spirit as a gentleman was not subdued, told 
him there was half-a-crown for him on his calling, 



THE DAY OF THE DISASTEBS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 25 

Alone, and meditative, and astonished, and, as it were, half 
undone, Mr. Blundell continued his journey towards the dinner, 
having made up his mind, that as his watch-chain was still 
apparent, and had the watch attached to it, and as the disorder of 
his nerves, if not quite got rid of, might easily be referred to 
delicacy of health, he would refresh his spirits with some of that 
excellent port, which always made him feel twice the man he was. 

Nor was this judicious conclusion prevented, hut rather 
irritated and enforced, by one of those sudden showers, which in 
this fickle climate are apt to come pouring down in the midst of 
the finest weather, especially upon the heels of April. This, to 
be sure, was a tremendous one ; though, by diverting our hero's 
chagrin, and putting him upon his mettle, it only made him 
gather up his determination, and look extremely counter-active 
and frowning. Would to heaven his nerves had been as braced up 
as his face ! The gutters were suddenly a torrent ; the pavement 
a dancing wash ; the wind a whirlwind ; the women all turned 
into distressed Venuses de' Medici. Everybody got up in door- 
ways, or called a coach. 

Unfortunately no coach w T as to be had. The hacks went by, 
insolently taking no notice. Mr. Blundell' s determination was 
put to a nonplus. The very door-ways in the street where he 
was, being of that modern, skimping, inhospitable, penny-saving, 
done-by-contract order, so unlike the good old projecting ones 
with pediments and ample thresholds, denied security even to 
his thin and shrinking person. His pumps were speedily as wet 
through as if they had been made of paper ; and what rendered 
this ruin of his hopes the more provoking was, that the sunshine 
suddenly burst forth again, as powerful as the rain which had 
interrupted it. A coach, however, he now thought, would be 
forthcoming ; and it would at least take him home again ; while 
the rain, and " the previous inability to get one," would furnish 
a good excuse for returning. 

But no coach was to be had so speedily, and meantime his 
feet were wet, and there was danger of cold. " As I am wet," 
thought Mr. Blundell, sighing, " a little motion, at all events, is 
best. It would be better, considering I am so, not to stop at all, 
nor perhaps get into a coach ; but then how am I to get home in 
these shoes, and this highly evening dress ? I shall be a sight. 
I shall have those cursed little boys after me. Perhaps I shall 
again be hustled." 

Bewildered with contending emotions of shame, grief, dis- 



26 THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 

appointment, anger, nay hunger, and the sympathy between his 
present pumps and departed elegancies, our hero picked his way 
as delicately as he could along the curb-stones ; and, turning a 
Corner, had the pleasure of seeing a hackney-coach slowly moving 
in the distance, and the man holding forth his whip to the pedes- 
trians, evidently disengaged. The back of it, to be sure, was 
towards him, and the street long and narrow, and very muddy. 
But no matter. An object's an object ; — a little more mud could 
not signify : our light-footed sufferer began running. 

Now runners, unfortunately, are not always prepared for 
corners ; especially when their anxiety has an object right before 
it, and the haste is in proportion. Mr. Blundell, almost before 
he was aware of it, found himself in the middle of a flock of 
sheep. There was a hackney-coach also in the way ; the dog 
was yelping, and leaping hither and thither ; and the drover, in 
a very loud state of mind, hooting, whistling, swearing, and 
tossing up his arms. 

Mr. Blundell, it is certain, could not have got into a position 
less congenial to his self-possession, or more calculated to commit 
his graces in the eyes of the unpropitiated. And the sheep, instead 
of sympathizing with him, as in their own distress they might 
(poetically) be supposed to do, positively seemed in the league to 
distress his stockings, and not at all to consider even his higher 
garment. They ran against him ; they bolted at him ; they 
leaped at him ; or if they seemed to avoid him, it was only to 
brush him with muddier sides, and to let in upon his weakened 
forces the frightful earnestness of the dog, and the inconsiderate, 
if not somewhat suspicious, circumambiences of the coachman's 
whip. 

Mr. Blundell suddenly disappeared. 

He fell down, and the sheep began jumping over him ! The 
spectators, I am sorry to say, were in an ecstasy. 

You know, observant reader, the way in which sheep carry 
themselves on abrupt and saltatory occasions ; how they follow 
one another with a sort of spurious and involuntary energy ; what 
a pretended air of determination they have ; how they really have 
it, as far as example induces, and fear propels them ; with what a 
heavy kind of lightness they take the leap ; how brittle in the 
legs, lumpish in the body, and insigniticant in the face ; how 
they seem to quiver with apprehension, while they are bold in 
act ; and with what a provoking and massy springiness they 
brush by you, if you happen to be in the way, as though they 



THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 27 

wouldn't avoid the terrors of your presence, if possible, — or 
rather, as if they would avoid it with all their hearts, but insulted 
you out of a desperation of inability. Baas intermix their pensive 
objections with the hurry, and a sound of feet as of water. Then, 
ever and anon, come the fiercer leaps, the conglomerating circuits, 
the dorsal visitations, the yelps and tongue-lollings of the dog, 
lean and earnest minister of compulsion ; and loud, and dominant 
over all, exult the no less yelping orders of the drover, — inde- 
finite, it is true, but expressive, — rustical cogencies of oo and on, 
the intelligible jargon of the Corydon or Thyrsis of Chalk-Ditch, 
who cometh, final and humane, with a bit of candle in his hat, a 
spike at the end of his stick, and a hoarseness full of pastoral 
catarrh and juniper. 

Thrice (as the poets say) did Carfington Blundell, Esquire, 
raise his unhappy head out of the melee, hatless and mudded ; 
thrice did the spectators shout ; and thrice did he sink back from 
the shout and the sheep, in calamitous acquiescence. 

" Lie still, you fool!" said the hackney-coachman, " and 
they'll jump easy." 

" Jump easy ! " Heavens ! how strange are the vicissitudes 
of human affairs. To think of Mr. Blundell only but yesterday, 
or this evening rather, — nay, not an hour ago, — his day fine, his 
hopes immense, his whole life lapped up, as it were, in cotton 
and lavender, his success elegant, his evening about to be spent 
in a room full of admirers ; and now, his very prosperity is to 
consist in lying still in the mud, and letting sheep jump over 
him ! 

Then to be called a " fool : " — " Lie still, you fool." 
Mr. Blundell could not stand it any longer (as the Irishman 
said) ; so he rose up just in time to secure a kick from the last 
sheep, and emerged amidst a roar of congratulation. 

He got as quickly as possible into a shop, which luckily com- 
municated with a back street ; and, as things generally mend 
when they reach their worst (such at least was the consolatory 
reflection which our hero's excess of suffering was glad to 
seize hold of), a hackney-coach was standing close to him, 
empty, and disengaged. It has just let a gentleman down 
next door. 

Our hero breathed a great breath, returned his handkerchief 
into his pocket (which had been made a sop of to no purpose), and 
uttering the word " accident,'" and giving rapid orders where to 
drive to, was hastening to hide himself from late and the little 



28 THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ, 

boys within the vehicle, when, to his intense amazement, the 
coachman stopped him. 

" Folio!" quoth the Jarveian mystery; " what are you 
arter ? " 

" Going to get in," said Blundell. 

" I'm bless'd if you do," said the coachman. 

"How, fellow! Not get in?" cried Mr. Blundell, irritated 
that so mean an obstacle should present itself to his great wants. 
" What's your coach for, sir, if it isn't to accommodate gentle- 
men ; — to accommodate anyhodj, I may say ? " 

Now it happened, that the coachman, besides having had his 
eye caught by another fare, was a very irritable coachman, given 
to repenting or being out of temper ail day, for the drinking he 
solaced himself with overnight ; and he didn't choose to be 
called " fellow," especially by an individual with a sort of dancing- 
master appearance, with his hat jammed in, his silk stockings 
untimely, and his whole very equivocal man all over mud. So 
jerking him aside with his elbow, and then turning about, with 
the steps behind him, and facing the unhappy Blundell, he thus, 
with a terrible slowness of articulation, bespoke him, the coun- 
tenances of both getting redder as he spoke : — 

" And do you think now, — Master ' Fellow,' or Fiddler, or 
Mudlark, — or whatsomever else you call yourself, — that I'm 
going to have the new seats and lining o' my coach dirtied so 
as not to be fit to be seen, by such a trumpery beast as you 
are ? " 

"It is for light sorrows to speak," saith the philosopher; 
" great ones are struck dumb." Mr. Blundell was struck dumb ; 
dumber than ever he had conceived it possible for a gentleman to 
be struck. It is little to say that he felt as if heaven and earth 
had come together. There was no heaven and earth ; nothing 
but space and silence. Mr. Blundell's world was annihilated. 

Alas ! it was restored to him by a shout from the '• cursed 
little boys." Mr. Blundell mechanically turned away, and began 
retracing his steps homeward, half conscious, and all a spectacle ; 
the little boys following and preceding him, just leaving a hollow 
space for his advances, and looking back, as they jogged, in his 
face. He turned into a shop, and begged to be allowed to wait a 
little in the back parlour. He was humanely accommodated with 
soap and water, and a cloth ; and partly out of shame at returning 
through the gazes of the shopmen, he stayed there long enough 
to get rid of his tormentors, No great-coat, however, was to be 



THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 29 

had ; no shoes that fitted ; no stockings ; and though he was no 
longer in his worst and wettest condition, he could not gather up 
courage enough to send for another coach. In the very idea of a 
coachman he beheld something that upturned all his previous 
existence: — a visitation — a Gorgon — a hypochondria. " Don't 
talk to me like a death's-head," said Falstaff to Doll Tear- 
sheet, when she reminded him of his age. Mr. Blundell would 
have said, " Don't talk to me like a hackney-coachman." The 
death's-head and cross-hones were superseded in his imagination 
by an old hat, wisp of hay, and arms akimbo. 

Our hero had washed his hands and face, had set his beaver 
to rights, had effaced (as he thought) the worst part of his stains, 
and succeeded in exchanging his boot-pockethanclkerchief for a 
cleaner one ; with which, alternately concealing his face as if he 
had a toothache, or holding it carelessly before his habiliments, 
he was fain, now that the day was declining, to see if he could 
not pick his way home again, not quite intolerably. It was a 
delicate emergency : but experience having somewhat rallied his 
forces, and gifted him with that sudden world of reflection which 
is produced by adversity, he bethought himself, not only that he 
must yield, like all other great men, to necessity, but that he was 
a personage fitted for nice and ultimate contrivances. He was of 
opinion, that although the passengers, if they chose to look at 
him, could not but be aware that he had sustained a mischance 
common to the meanest, yet, in consideration of his air and 
manners, perhaps they would not choose to look at him very 
much ; or if they did, their surprise would be divided between 
pity for his mishap, and admiration of his superiority to it. 

Certainly the passengers who met him did look a good deal. 
He could not but see it, though he saw as little as he could help. 
How those who came behind him looked, it would have been a 
needless cruelty to himself to ascertain ; so he never turned 
his head. No little boys thought it worth their while to follow 
his steps, which was a great comfort ; though whenever any 
observers of that class met him, strange and most disrespectful 
were their grins and ejaculations. " Here's a Guy ! " was the 
most innocent of their salutes. A drunken sailor startled him, 
w T ith asking how T the land lay about " Tower Ditch ? " And an 
old Irishwoman, in explanation of his appearance to the wondering 
eyes of her companions, defined him to be one that was so fond 
of " crame o' the valley" that he must needs be " roulling 
in it." 



30 THE DAY OF THE DISASTEBS 0$ C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 

Had "cabs" been then, Mr. Blundell would unquestionably 
have made a compromise with his horror of charioteers, and on 
the strength of the mitigated defacements of his presence have 
risked a summons to the whip. As it was, he averted his look 
from every hackney-coach, and congratulated himself as he began 
nearing home — home, sweet even to the most insipid of the 
Blundells, and never so sweet as now, though the first thoughts 
of returning to it had been accompanied with agonies of mortifica- 
tion. " In a few minutes," thought he, " I shall be seen no more 
for the day (oh ! strange felicity for a dandy !) ; in a few minutes 
I shall be in other clothes, other shoes, and another train of 
feelings — not the happiest of men, perhaps, retrospectively, but 
how blest in the instant and by comparison ! In a few minutes 
all will be silence, security, dryness. I shall be in my arm-chair, 
in my slippers — shall have a fire ; and I will have a mutton- 
cutlet, hot — and refresh myself with a bottle of the wine my friend 
Mimpin sent me." 

Alas ! what are the hopes of man, even when he concludes 
that things must alter for the better, seeing that they are at 
their worst ? How is he to be quite sure, even after he has 
been under sheep in a gutter, that things have been at their 
worst ? — that his cup of calamity, full as it seemed, is not to 
be succeeded by, or wonderfully expanded into, a still larger 
cup, with a remaining draught of bitterness, amazing, not to 
have been thought of, making the sick throat shudder, and the 
heart convulse ? 

Scarcely had the sweet images of the mutton-cutlet and wine 
risen in prospect upon the tired soul of our hero, than he 
approached the corner of the street round which he was to turn 
into his own ; and scarcely had he experienced that inward trans- 
port, that chuckle of the heart, with which tired homesters are in 
the habit of turning those corners, — in short, scarcely had his 
entire person manifested itself round the corner, and his eyes 
lilted themselves up to behold the side of the blessed threshold, 
than he heard, or rather was saluted and drowned with a roar of 
voices the most huge, the most unexpected, the most terrific, the 
most weighty, the most world-like, the most grave yet merry, the 
most intensely stupefying, that it would have been possible for 
Sancho himself to conceive, after all his experience with Don 
Quixote. 

It now struck Mr. Blundell that, with a half-conscious, half- 
unconscious eye, he had seen people running towards the point 



THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS CF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 81 

which he had just attained, and others looking out of their 
windows ; but as they did not look at him, and every one passed 
him without attention, how was he to dream of what was going 
forward ; much more, that it had any relation to himself ? 
Frightful discovery ! which he was destined speedily to make, 
though not on the instant. 

The crowd (for almost the whole street was one dense popula- 
tion) seemed in an agony of delight. They roared, they shrieked, 
they screamed, they writhed, they bent themselves double, they 
threw about their arms, they seemed as if they would have gone 
into fits. Mr. Blundell's bewilderment was so complete, that he 
walked soberly along, steadied by the very amazement ; and as 
he advanced, they at once, as in a dream, appeared to him both 
to make way for him, and to advance towards him ; to make way 
in the particular, but advance in the mass ; to admit him with 
respect, and overwhelm him with familiarity. 

" In the name of heaven ! " thought he, " what can it all be ? 
It is impossible the crowd can have any connexion with me in the 
first instance. I could not have brought them here ; and my 
appearance, though unpleasant, and perhaps somewhat ludicrous, 
cannot account for such a perfect mass and conspiracy of astonish- 
ment. What is it ? " 

And all the way he advanced, did Mr. Blundell's eyes, and 
manner, and whole person, exhibit a sort of visible echo to this 
internal question of his — What is it ? 

The house was about three-quarters of the way up the street, 
which was not a long one ; and it stood on the same side on 
which our unfortunate pedestrian had turned. 

As he approached the denser part of the crowd, words began 
to develop themselves to his ear — " Well, this beats all ! " " Well, 
of all the sights ! " " Why, it's the man himself, the very man, 
poor devil !" " Look at his face !" " What the devil can he 
have been at ? " " Look at the pianoforte man — he's coming up ! " 

Blundell mechanically pursued his path, mystified to the last 
depths of astonishment, and- scarcely seeing what he saw. Go 
forward he felt that he must ; to turn back was not only useless, 
but he experienced the very fascination of terror and necessity. 
He would have proceeded to his lodgings, had Death himself 
stood in the door- way. Meantime up comes this aforesaid 
mystery, the pianoforte man. 

" Here's a pretty business you've been getting us into," said 
this amazing stranger. 



32 THE DAY OF THE DISASTERS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 

" What business ?" ejaculated Mr. Blundell. 

" "What business ? Why, all this here d d business — all 

this blackguard crowd — and my master's ruined pianoforte. A 
pretty jobation I shall get ; and I should like to know what for, 
and who's to pay me?" 

" In the name of God ! " said our hero, " what is it ?" 

" Why, don't you see what it is ? — a hoax, and be d d to 

it. It's a mercy I wasn't dashed to pieces when these rascals 
tipped over the pianoforte ; and there it lies, with three of its 
legs smashed and a corner split. I should like to know what I'm 
to have for the trouble ?" 

" And I," said the upholsterer's man. 

" And I," said the glass-man. 

" And this here coffin," said the undertaker. 

There had been a hoax, sure enough ; and a tremendous hoax 
it was. A plentiful space before the door was strewed with hay, 
boxes, and baskets. There stood the coffin, upright, like a mummy ; 
and here lay the pianoforte, a dumb and shattered discord. 

Mr. Blundell had now arrived at his door, but did not even 
think of going in ; that is to say, not instantly. He mechanically 
stopped, as if to say or do something : for something was plainly 
expected of him ; but what it was he knew not, except that he 
mechanically put his hand towards his purse, and as mechanically 
withdrew it. 

The crowd all the while seemed to concentrate their forces 
towards him,— all laughing, murmuring, staring — all eager, and 
pressing on one another ; yet leaving a clear way for the gentle- 
man, his tradesmen, and his goods. 

What was to be done ? 

Mr. Blundell drew a sigh from the bottom of his heart, as 
though it were his last sigh or his last sixpence ; yet he drew 
forth no sixpence. Extremes met, as usual. The consumma- 
tion of distress produced calmness and reflection. 

" You must plainly perceive, gentlemen," said our hero, 
" that it could be no fault of mine." 

" I don't know that," said the pianoforte man. The crowd 
laughed at the man's rage, and at once cheered him on, and 
provoked him against themselves. He seemed as if he did not 
know which he should run at first, — his involuntary customer, or 
the " cursed little boys." 

11 Zounds, sir!" said the man, "you oughtn't to have been 
hoaxed." 



THE DAY OF THE DISASTEBS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 33 

; Oh ! oh ! " said the parliamentary crowd. 

; I mean," continued he, " that none but some d- 



disagreeahle chap, or infernal fool, is ever treated in this here 
manner." 

" Oh! oh ! " reiterated the bystanders. " Come, that's better 
than the last." 

" Which is the biggest fool ?" exclaimed a boy, in that alti- 
tude of voice which is the most sovereign of provocations to grown 
ears. 

The man ran at the boy, first making a gesture to our hero, 
as much as to say, " I'll be with you again presently." The 
crowd hustled the man back ; — the undertaker had seized the 
opportunity of repeating that he "hoped his honour would con- 
sider his trouble ;" — the glass-man and the upholsterer were on 
each side of him ; — and suddenly the heavy shout recommenced, 
for a new victim had turned the corner, — a stranger to what was 
taking place, — a man with some sort of milliner's or florist's box. 
The crowd doated on his face. First, he turned the corner with 
the usual look of indifferent hurry; then he began to have an 
inquiring expression, but without the least intimation that the 
catastrophe applied to himself ; then the stare became wider, and 
a little doubtful : and then he stopped short, as if to reconnoitre 
■ — at which the laugh was prodigious. But the new comer was 
wise ; for he asked what was the matter, of the first person he 
came up with ; and learning how the case stood, had energy 
enough to compound with one more hearty laugh, in preference to 
a series of mortifications. He fairly turned back, pursued by a 
roar ; and oh ! how he loved the corner, as he went round it ! 
Every hair at the back of his head had seemed to tingle with 
consciousness and annoyance. He felt as if he saw with his 
shoulder-blades ; — as if he was face to face at the back of his hat. 

At length the misery and perplexity of Mr. Blundell reached 
a climax so insurmountable, that he would have taken out his 
second and (as he thought) remaining pocket-handkerchief, if even 
that consolation had been left him ; for the tears came into his 
eyes. But it was gone ! The handkerchief, however, itself, did 
not distress him. "Nothing could touch him further. He wiped 
his eyes with the ends of the fingers of his gloves, and stood 
mute, — a perplexity to the perplexed, — a pity even to the "little 
boys." 

Now tears are very critical things, and must be cautiously 
shed, especially in critical ages. In a private wav, provided vou 

3 



34 THE DAY OF THE DISASTEES OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 

have locked the door, and lost three children, you may be sup- 
posed to shed a few without detriment to your dignity ; and in the 
heroical ages, the magnitude and candour of passion permitted 
tears openly, the feelings then being supposed to be equally strong 
in all respects, and a man to have as much right to weep as a 
woman. But how lucky was it for poor Blundell that no brother 
dandy saw him ! His tormentors did not know whether to pity or 
despise him. The pianoforte man, with an oath, was going to 
move off; but, on looking again at his broken instrument, re- 
mained, and urged compensation. The others expressed their 
sorrow, but repeated, that they hoped his honour would consider 
them ; and they repeated it the more, because his tears raised 
expectations of the money which he would be weak enough to 
disburse. . 

Alas ! they did not know that the dislike of disbursement, and 
the total absence of all sympathy with others in our weeping hero 
(in this, as in other respects, very different from the tear-shedding 
Achilles), was the cause of all which they and he were at this 
moment enduring ; for it was the inability to bring out his money 
which kept Mr. Blundell lingering outside his lodging, when he 
might have taken his claimants into it ; and it was the jovial 
irascibility of an acquaintance of his, which, in disgust at his 
evasion of dinner-givings, and his repeatedly shirking his part of 
the score at some entertainments at which he pretended to con- 
sider himself a guest, had brought this astounding calamity to his 
door. 

Happily for these " last infirmities " of a mind which certainly 
could not be called " noble," there are hearts so full of natural 
sympathy, that the very greatest proofs of the want of it will but 
produce, in certain extremities, a pity which takes the want itself 
for a claim and a misfortune ; and this sympathy now descended 
to Mr. Blun dell's aid, like another goddess from heaven, in a 
shape not unworthy of it, — to wit, that of the pretty daughter of 
his landlord, a little buxom thing, less handsome than good- 
natured, and with a heart that might have served to cut up into 
cordial bosoms for half a dozen fine ladies. She had once nursed 
our hero in sickness, and to say the truth, had not been disin- 
clined to fall in love with him, and be made " a lady," half out of 
pure pity at his fever, had he given her the slightest encourage- 
ment ; but she might as well have hoped to find a heart in an 
empty coat. However, a thoroughly good nature never entirely 
loses a sort of gratitude to the object that has called forth so 



THE DAY OF THE DISASTEKS OF C. BLUNDELL, ESQ. 35 

sweet a feeling as that of love, even though it turn out unworthy, 
or the affections (as in our heroine's case) be transferred else- 
where ; and accordingly, in sudden bonnet and shawl, and with a 
face blushing partly from shame, and partly from anger at the 
crowd, forth came the vision of pretty, plump little Miss Widgeon 
(Mrs. Burrowes " as is to be "), and tapping Mr. Blundell on the 
shoulder, and begging the " other gentlemen" to walk in, said, 
in a voice not to be resisted, " Hadn't you better settle this 
matter in-doors, Mr. Blundell ? I daresay it can be done very 
easily." 

Blundell has gone in, dear reader ; the other gentlemen have 
gone in ; the crowd are slowly dislodging ; Miss Widgeon, aided 
partly by the generosity of her nature, partly by the science of 
lodging-house economy, and partly by the sense and manhood of 
Mr. William Burrowes, then present, a strapping young citizen 
from Tower Hill, takes upon herself that ascendancy of the 
moment over Mr. Blundell due to a superior nature, and settles 
the very illegitimate claims of the goods-and-chattel bringers to 
the satisfaction of all parties, yea, even of Mr. Blundell himself. 
The balm of the immediate relief was irresistible, even though 
he saw a few of his shillings departing. 

What he felt next morning, when he w r oke, this history saith 
not ; for we like to leave off, according to the Italian recommen- 
dation, with a bocca dolce, a sweet mouth ; and with whose mouth, 
even though it was not always grammatical, can the imagination 
be left in better company than with that of the sweet-hearted and 
generous little Polly Widgeon ? 



( 36 ) 



A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GABDENS * 

THE COLLECTION THERE AT THE TIME OF THE VISIT — A TIGER BROKE 

LOOSE MILD ANTHROPOPHAGY OF THE BEAR — THE ELEPHANT THE 

DR. JOHNSON OF ANIMALS — GIRAFFES — MONKEYS — PARROTS — EAGLES 
— MYSTERIES OF ANIMAL THOUGHT — IS IT JUST IN HUMAN BEINGS 
TO MAKE PRISONS OF THIS KIND ? 

We went to the Zoological Gardens the other day, for the first 
time, to see our old friends " the wild beasts " (grim intimates of 
boyhood), and enjoy their lift in the world from their lodgings in 
Towers and Exeter Changes, where they had no air, and where 
an elephant wore boots, because the rats gnawed his feet ! The 
first thing that struck us, next to the beauty of the Gardens, and 
the pleasant thought that such flowery places were now prepared 
for creatures whom we lately thrust into mere dens and dust- 
holes, was the quantity of life and energy they displayed. What 
motion ! — what strength ! — what elegance ! What prodigious 
chattering, and brilliant colours, in the maccaws and parrakeets ! 
What fresh, clean, and youthful salience in the lynx! What a 
variety of dogs, all honest fellows apparently, of the true dog 
kind ; and how bounding, how intelligent, how fit to guard our 
doors and our children, and scamper all over the country ! And 
then the Persian greyhound ! — How like a patrician dog (better 
even than Land seer's), and made as if expressly to wait upon a 
Persian prince : its graceful slenderness, darkness, and long silken 
ears, matching his gentlemanly figure and well-dressed beard ! 

We have life enough, daily, round about us — amazing, if we 
did but think of it ; but our indifference is a part of our health. 
The blood spins in us too quickly to let us think too much. This 
sudden exhibition of life, in shapes to which we are unaccustomed, 
reminds us of the wonderful and ever-renewing vitality of all 
things. Those animals look as fresh, and strong, and beautiful, 
as if they were born in a new beginning of the world. Men in 
cities hardly look as much ! — and horses dragging hackney- 
coaches are not happy specimens. But the horse in the new 

* In the year 1835. 



A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GAEDENS. 37 

carriage is one, if we considered it. The leaves and flowers in 
the nursery-gardens exhibit the same untiring renewal of life. 
The sunbeam, in the thick of St. Giles's, comes as straight and 
young as ever from the godlike orb that looks at us from a dis- 
tance of millions of miles, out of the depths of millions of ages. 
But the sun is a visitor as good-natured as it is great, and there- 
fore we do not think too much even of the sunbeam. This bound- 
ing creature in its cage is not a common sight ; so it comes 
freshly and wonderfully upon us. What brilliancy in its eyes ! 
What impetuous vigour in its leap ! What fearlessness of knocks 
and blows ! And how pleasant to think it is on the other side of 
its bars ! What a sensation would ensue, if that pretty- coated 
creature, which eats a cake so good-naturedly, were suddenly out 
of its cage, and the cry were heard — " A tiger loose ! " — " A 
panther ! " — " A lion ! " What a rush and screaming of all the 
ladies to the gates ! — and of gentlemen too ! How the human 
voices, and those of the parrakeets, would go shrieking to heaven 
together ! Fancy the bear suddenly jumping off his pole upon 
the cake -shop ! A tiger let loose at daytime would not be so 
bad as at night. Perhaps he would be most frightened himself. 
There was an account of one that got loose in Piccadilly, and 
slunk down into a cellar, where he was quietly taken ; but at 
night, just before feeding, it might not be so pleasant. News- 
papers tell us of a lion which got out of one of the travelling 
caravans in the country, and, after lurking about the hedges, tore 
a labourer that he met, in full daylight. Nervous people in 
imaginative states of the biliary vessels — timid gentlemen taking 
easy rides — old ladies top comfortable in their homes and arm- 
chairs — must sometimes feel misgivings while making their circuit 
of the Regent's Park, after reading news of this description. Fancy 
yourself coming home from the play or opera, humming " Den 
vieni, non tardar," or, "Meet me by moonlight alone;" and, as 
you are turning a corner in Wimpole Street, meeting a tiger ! 

What should you say? You would find yourself pouring 
forth a pretty set of Rabelaesque exclamations : — 

« Eh— Oh— Lord !— Hollo !— Help !— Help !— Murder !— 
Tigers ! — U — u — u — u — u — u ! — My God ! — Policeman ! " 
Enter Policeman, 

Policeman. — " Good God ! — A gentleman with a tiger ! " 

[Exit Po licem an . 

In one of Moliere's exquisite extravaganzas between his acts, 
is a scene betwixt a man and a bear, who has caught him in its 



38 A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL G^EDENS. 

arms. The man tries every expedient he can think of to make 
the hear considerate ; and, among others, flatters him in the most 
excessive manner, calling him, at last, his Royal Highness. The 
bear, however, whom we are to fancy all this while on its hind- 
legs, looking the man with horrible indifference in the face, and 
dancing him from side to side in its heavy shuffle, is not at all to 
be diverted from his dining purposes ; and he is about to act 
accordingly, when hunters come up and take off his attention. 
Up springs the man into a tree ; and with the cruelty of mortified 
vanity (to think of all the base adulation he has been pouring 
forth) the first words he utters respecting his Royal Highness are, 
" Shoot him." 

Not without its drollery, though real, is a story of a bear in 
one of the northern expeditions. Two men, a mate and a car- 
penter, had landed somewhere to cut wood, or look for provisions ; 
and one of them was stooping down, when he thought some ship- 
mate had followed him, who was getting, boy-like, on his shoulders. 
" Be quiet," said he; " get down." The unknown did not get 
down ; and the man, looking up as he stooped, saw the carpenter 
staring at him in horror. " Oh, mate ! " exclaimed the carpenter, 
"ifsa bear!" Think what the man must have felt, when he 
heard this explanation of the weight on his shoulders I No 
tragedy, however, ensued. 

Pleasant enough are such stories, so ending. But of all 
deaths, that by a wild beast must be one of the most horrible. 
There is action, indeed, to diminish the horror; but frightful 
must be the unexpectedness — the unnaturalness — the clawing and 
growling — the hideous and impracticable fellow- creature, looking 
one in the face, struggling with us, mingling his breath with ours 
— tearing away scalp or shoulder-blade. 

To return, however, to our Gardens. The next thing that 
struck us was the quiet ; and in connexion with this, the creatures 1 
accommodation of themselves to circumstances, and the human-like 
sort of intercourse into which they get with their visitors. With 
wild beasts we associate the ideas of constant rage and assault. 
On reflection, we recollect that this is not bound to be the case ; 
that travellers pass deserts in daytime, and neither hear nor see 
them ; and that it is at night they are to be looked for in true 
wild-beast condition, and then only if wild with hunger. It is 
no very extraordinary matter, therefore, to find them quiet by 
day, especially when we consider how their wants are attended 
to ; and yet we cannot but think it strange that they should be so 



A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 39 

put, as they are, into an unnatural condition, under bars and bolts. 
More of this, however, presently. Let us look at them as making 
friends with us, receiving our buns and biscuits, and being as 
close to us (by permission of those same bars) as dogs and cats. 
This is a very different position of things from the respectful 
distance kept in the African sands or in the jungle ! We are 
afraid it breeds contempt in some of the spectators, or at least 
indifference ; and that people do not always find the pleasure they 
expected. We could not help admiring one visitor the other day, 
who hastened from den to den, and from beast to bird, twirling 
an umbrella, and giving little self-complacent stops at each, not 
longer than if he were turning over some commonplace book of 
prints. " Hah ! " he seemed to be saying to himself, " this is 
the panther, is it ? Hm — Panther. What says the label here ? 
1 Hyaena Capensis.' Hm — Hyaena — ah ! a thing untameable. 
' Grisly Bear.' Hah! — grisly — hm. Very like. Boa — ' Tiger 
Boa ' — ah ! — Boa in a box — Hm — Sleeping, I suppose. Very 
different from seeing him squeeze somebody. Hm. Well ! I 
think it wdll rain. Terrible thing that — spoil my hat." Perhaps, 
however, we are doing the gentleman injustice, and he was only 
giving a glance, preparatory to a longer inspection. When a 
pleasure is great and multitudinous, one is apt to run it all over 
hastily in the first instance ; as in an exhibition of paintings, or 
with a parcel of books. 

It is curious to find oneself (literally) hand and glove with 
a bear ; giving him buns, and watching his face, like a school- 
boy's, to see how he likes them. A reflection rises — " If it were 
not for those bars, perhaps he would be eating me" Yet how 
mild they and his food render him. W T e scrutinize his counte- 
nance and manners at leisure, and are amused with his apparently 
indolent yet active lumpishness, his heavy kind of intelligence 
(which will do nothing more than is necessary), his almost hand- 
like use of his long, awkward-looking toes, and the fur which he 
wears clumsily about him like a watchman's great- coat. The 
darker bears look, somehow, the more natural ; at least to those 
whose imaginations have not grown up amidst polar narratives. 
The white bear in these Gardens has a horrible mixed look of 
innocence and cruelty. A Roman tyrant kept a bear as one of 
his executioners, and called it " Innocence." We could imagine 
it to have had just such a face. From that smooth, unimpressible 
aspect there is no appeal. He has no ill-will to you ; only he is 
fond of your flesh, and would eat you up as meekly as you would 



40 A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS* 

sup milk, or swallow a custard. Imagine his arms around you, 
and your fate depending upon what you could say to him, like 
the man in Moliere. You feel that you might as well talk to a 
devouring statue, or to the sign of the Bear in Piccadilly, or to a 
guillotine, or to the cloak of Nessus, or to your own great-coat (to 
ask it to be not so heavy), or to the smooth-faced wife of an ogre, 
hungry and deaf, and one that did not understand your language. 

Another curious sensation arises from being so tranquil your- . 
self, and slow in your movements, while you are close to creatures 
so full of emotion and action. And you know not whether to be 
more pleased or disappointed at seeing some of them look so 
harmless, and others so small. On calling your recollections 
together, you may know, as matters of fact, that lynxes and 
wolves are no bigger ; but you have willingly made them other- 
wise, as they appear to you in the books of your childhood ; and 
it seems an anti-climax to find a wolf no bigger than a dog, and a 
lynx than a large cat. The lynx in these Gardens is a beautiful, 
bounding creature. You know him at once by his ears, if not by 
his eyes ; yet he does not strike you like the lynx you have read 
of. You are obliged to animate your respect for him, by con- 
sidering him under the title of " cat-o'-mountain ;" 

" The owl is abroad, the bat and the toad, 
And so is the cat-o'-mountain." 

Alas ! poor cat-o'-mountain is not abroad here, in the proper 
sense ; he is "abroad and at home," and yet neither. You see 
him by daylight, without the proper fire in his eyes. You do not 
meet him in a mountain-pass, but in a poor closet in Mary-le- 
bone ; where he jumps about like a common cat, begging for 
something to eat. Let him look as he may, he does not look so 
well as in a book. 

We saw no lion. Whether there is any or not, at present, 
we cannot say. I believe there is. But friends get talking, and 
one of them moves away, and carries off the rest ; and so things 
are passed by. We did not even see the rhinoceros ; or the 
beaver, which would not come out (if there) ; or the seal (which 
we particularly wished to see, having a respect for seals and their 
affections : — there is one species in particular, remarkable for the 
mobility of its expression, which we should like to get acquainted 
with ; but this is not the one in the Garden catalogue). The 
lioness was asleep, as all well-behaved wild beasts ought to be at 
that hour ; and another, or a tigress (we forget which), pained 



A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 4i 

the beholder by walking incessantly to and fro, uttering little 
moans. She seemed incapable of the philosophy of her fellow- 
captives. The dogs are an interesting sight, particularly the 
Persian greyhounds already mentioned, and the St. Bernard dogs, 
famous for their utility and courage. But it was a melancholy 
thing to see one of these friends of the traveller barking and 
bounding incessantly for pieces of biscuit, and jerked back by the 
chain round his neck. It seemed an ill return for the Alpine 
services of his family. 

The boa in his box was asleep. He is handsomely spotted : 
but the box formed a sorry contrast in the imagination with his 
native woods. He seemed to be in terrible want of " air and 
exercise." Is not the box unconscionably small and . confined ? 
Could not a snake-safe be contrived, of good handsome dimen- 
sions ? There is no reason why a serpent should not be made as 
comfortable as possible, even though he would make no more 
bones of us than we do of an oyster. 

The squirrels are better off, and are great favourites, being 
natural crackers of nuts ; but could no trees be contrived for 
them to climb, and grass for their feet ? It is unpleasant to see 
them so much on the ground. 

The elephant would seem to be more comfortably situated 
than most. He has water to bathe in, mud to stick in, and an 
area many times bigger than himself for his circuit. Very in- 
teresting is it to see him throw bits of mud over himself, and to 
see, and hear him, suck the water up in his trunk and then dis- 
charge it into his great red throat ; in which he also receives, 
with sage amenity, the biscuits of the ladies. Certainly, the 
more one considers an elephant, the more he makes good his 
claim to be considered the Doctor Johnson of the brute creation. 
He is huge, potent, sapient, susceptible of tender impressions ; is 
a good fellow ; likes as much water as the other did tea ; gets on 
at a great uncouth rate when he walks ; and though perhaps less 
irritable and melancholy, can take a witty revenge ; as witness 
the famous story of the tailor that pricked him, and whom he 
drenched with ditch-water. If he were suddenly gifted with 
speech, and we asked him whether he liked his imprisonment, 
the first words he would utter would unquestionably be — " Why, 
no, sir." Nor is it to be doubted, when going to dinner, that he 
would echo the bland sentiment of our illustrious countryman on 
a like occasion, " Sir, I like to dine." If asked his opinion of 
his keeper, he would say, " Why, sir, Hipkins is, upon the whole, 



42 A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 

' a good fellow,' — like myself, sir (smiling), — but not quite so 
considerate ; he knows I love him, and presumes a little too much 
upon my forbearance. He teases me for the amusement of the 
bystanders. Sir, Hipkins takes the display of allowance for the 
merit of ascendancy." 

This is what the elephant manifestly thought on the present 
occasion ; for the keeper set a little clog at him, less to the amuse- 
ment of the bystanders than he fancied ; and the noble beast, 
after butting the cur out of the way, and taking care to spare 
him as he advanced (for one tread of his foot would have smashed 
the little pertinacious wretch as flat as a pancake), suddenly made 
a stop and, in rebuke of both of them, uttered a high indignant 
scream, much resembling a score of cracked trumpets. 

Enter the three lady-like and most curious giraffes, probably 
called forth by the noise ; which they took, however, with great 
calmness. On inspection, their faces express insipidity and in- 
difference more than anything else — at least the one that we 
looked at did ; but they are interesting from their novelty, and 
from a singular look of cleanliness, delicacy, and refinement, 
mixed with a certain gaucherie, arising from their long, poking 
necks, and the disparity of length between their fore and hind 
legs. They look like young ladies of animals, naturally not 
ungraceful, but with bad habits. Their necks are not on a line 
with their fore legs, perpendicular and held up ; nor yet arched 
like horses' necks ; but make a feeble-looking, obtuse angle, com- 
pletely answering to the word " poking." The legs come up so 
close to the necks, that in front they appear to have no bodies ; 
the back slopes like a hill, producing the singular disparity be- 
tween the legs ; and the whole animal, being slender, light - 
coloured, and very gentle, gives you an idea of delicacy amount- 
ing to the fragile. The legs look as if a stick would break them 
in two, like glass. Acid to this, a slow and uncouth lifting of the 
legs, as they walk, as if stepping over gutters ; and the effect is 
just such as has been described, — the strangest mixture in the 
world of elegance and uncouthness. The people in charge of 
them seemed to be constantly curry-combing them after a gentle 
fashion, for extreme cleanliness is necessary to their health ; and 
the novelty of the spectacle is completed by the appearance of 
M. Thibaut in his Arab dress and beard, — the Frenchman who 
brought them over. The one we spoke of, moving its lips, but 
not the expression of its countenance, helped itself to a mouthful 
of feathers out of a lady's bonnet, as it stooped over the rails. 



A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 43 

The sight of new creatures like these throws one upon con- 
jectures as to the reason wiry nature calls them into existence. 
The conjectures are not very likely to discover anything ; but 
nature allows their indulgence. All. one can suppose is, that, 
besides helping to keep down the mutual superfluity of animal or 
vegetable life, and enabling the great conditions of death and 
reproduction to be fulfilled, their own portion of life is a variety 
of the pleasurable, which could exist only under that particular 
form. We are to conclude, that if the giraffe, the elephant, the 
lion, &c. &c, were not formed in that especial manner, they could 
neither perform the purposes required of them in the general 
scheme of creation, nor realize certain amounts of pleasurable 
sensation peculiar to each species. Happiness can only be added, 
or at least is only added, to the general stock, under that shape. 
And thus we can very well imagine new shapes of happiness called 
into being ; just as others appear to have been worn out, or done 
with, as in the mammoth and other antediluvian creatures. If 
we can conceive no end of space, why should we conceive an end 
of new creations, whatever our poor little bounds of historical 
time might appear to argue to the contrary ? What are a few 
thousands of years ? What would be millions ? Not a twinkle 
in the eye of eternity. To return, however, to our first proposi- 
tion, — human beings, brutes, fish, insects, serpents, vegetables, 
appear to be all varieties of pleasurable or pleasure-giving vitality, 
necessary to the harmony and completeness of the music of this 
state of being ; the worst discords of which (by our impulses to 
that end) seem destined to be done away, leaving only so much 
contrast as shall add another heavenly orb to the spheres. (Per- 
mit at least this dream by the roadside of creation. Who can 
contemplate its marvellousness and beauty, and not think his best 
thoughts on the subject ?) 

We forgot to mention the porcupine. It is very curious, and 
realizes a dream, yet not the most romantic part of it. The real 
porcupine is not so good a thing as it is in an old book ; for it 
doesn't shoot. Oh, books ! you are truly a world by yourselves, 
and a " real world " too, as the poet has called you, for you make 
us feel ; and what can any reality do more ? * Heaven made 
you, as it did the other world. Books were contemplated by 

* " Books are a real world, 

Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, 

Our pastime and our happiness may grow." — Wordsworth. 

A passage often quoted — it cannot be too often. 



44 A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 

Providence, as well as other matters of fact. — In the time of 
Claudian, the mere sight of this animal seems to have been 
enough to convince people of its powers of warfare. At least it 
convinced the poet. The darts were before his eyes ; and he 
took the showman's word for the use which could be made of 
them; only, it seems, the cunning porcupine was not " lavish of 
his weapons," nor chose to part with them, unless his life was in 
danger. He was very cautious, says the poet, how he got in a 
passion. He contented himself with threats. 

" Additur armis 

Calliditas, parcusque sui timor, iraque nunquam 

Prodiga telorum, caute contenta minari, 

Nee nisi servanda? jactus impendere vita}." — De Hystrice. 

The rattling of the prickles described by Claudian is still to be 
heard, when the creature is angry ; at least so the naturalists tell 
us ; and it is added, that they " occasionally fall off, particularly 
in autumn;" but it has no pow r er of "shooting them at its 
pursuers." * 

The dromedary looked very uncomfortable. His coat was 
half gone, as if from disease : and he appeared to sit down on 
the earth for the purpose of screening as much of his barrenness 
as he could, and of getting w 7 armth. But there was that invin- 
cible look of patience in the face, which is so affecting, and 
which creates so much respect in whatever face it be found. 
Animals luckily have no affectation. What you see in their faces 
is genuine ; though you may over-rate it, or do the reverse. 
When the lion looks angry, nobody believes he is feigning. When 
the dog looks affectionate, who doubts him ? 

But the monkeys — What a curious interest they create, — half- 
amusing, half-painful ! The reflection forced upon one's vanity 
is inevitable — " They are very like men." Oh, quam similtima 
turpissima bestia nobis ! 

" Oh, how like us is that most vile of bl•utes.' , 

The way in which they receive a nut in their hands, compose 
themselves with a sort of bustling nonchalance to crack it, and 
then look about for more with that little, withered, winking, half- 
human face, rs startling. The hand in particular mortifies one, 
it looks so very unbrute-like, and yet at the same time is so 

* Gore's Translation of Blnmcnbacli, \\ AO. 



A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 45 

small, so skinny, so like something elvish and unnatural. No 
wonder it has been thought in some countries that monkeys could 
speak, but avoided it for fear of being set to work. In their 
roomy cages here they look like a set of half-human pigmy school- 
boys withered into caricatures of a certain class of labourers, but 
having neither work nor want, — nothing to do but to leap out, or 
sit still, or play with or plague one another. Classes of two very 
gallant nations have been thought like monkeys ; and it ought 
not to mortify them, any more than the general resemblance to 
man should mortify the human species. The mortification in the 
latter instance is undoubtedly felt ; but it tells more against the 
man than the monkey. To the monkey it is, in fact, " a lift;" 
and that is the reason why the man resents it. We wish to stand 
alone in the creation, and not to be approached by any other 
animal, especially by one so insignificant, — so little " respectable" 
on the score of size and power. We would rather be resembled 
by lions and tigers. It is curious to observe, that in British 
heraldry there are but three coats of arms which have monkeys 
for supporters. One is the Duke of Leinster's (owing, it is said, 
to a monkey having carried off a Fitzgerald in a time of danger 
to the housetop, and safely brought him back). The others 
belong to the houses of Digby and St. John. Lions, tigers, 
eagles, all sorts of ferocious animals, are in abundance. This is 
natural enough, considering that this kind of honour originated 
in feudal times ; but the mind (without losing its just considera- 
tion for circumstances past or present, and all the strength, as 
well as weakness, which they include) has yet to learn the proper 
respect for qualities unconnected with brute force and power ; 
and it will do so in good time : it is doing so now, and therefore 
one may remark, without too much chance of rebuke, that as all 
nations, indeed all individuals, according to some, have been said 
to be like different classes of the lower creation (Englishmen like 
mastiffs or bull-clogs, Italians like antelopes, &c), so it ought not 
to be counted the most humiliating of such similitudes, when 
certain nations, or particular portions of a nation, especially of 
those that for wit and courage rank among the foremost, are 
called to mind by expressions in the faces of a tribe of animals, 
remarkable not only for that circumstance, but for their superiority 
to others in shrewdness, in vivacity, in mode of life, nay, in the 
affections ; for most touching stories have been told of the attach- 
ments of monkeys to one another, and to the human race too, and 
particularly of their behaviour when their companions or youn<* 



46 A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 

ones have been killed. What ought to mortify us in the likeness 
of brutes to men is the anger to which we see them subject, — the 
revenge, the greediness, and other low passions. But these they 
have in common with most animals. Their shrewdness and their 
sympathies they share with few. And there is a residuum of 
mystery in them, as in all things, which should lead us to culti- 
vate as much regard for them as we can, thus turning what is 
unknown to us to good instead of evil. It is impossible to look 
with much reflection at any animal, especially one of this appa- 
rently half- thinking class, and not consider that he probably 
partakes far more of our own thoughts and feelings than we are 
aware of, just as he manifestly partakes of our senses ; nay, that 
he may add to this community of being faculties or perceptions 
which we are unable to conceive. We may construe what we see 
of the manifestation of the animal's feelings into something good 
or otherwise, as it happens ; perhaps our conjectures may be 
altogether wrong ; but we cannot be wrong in making the best of 
them, — in getting as much pleasure from them as possible, and 
giving as much advantage to our fellow r -creatures. On the present 
occasion, as we stood watching these strange beings, marvelling 
at their eatings, their faces, and at the prodigious jumps they 
took from pillar to post, careless of thumps that seemed as if they 
would have dislocated their limbs, we observed one of them sitting 
by another with his arm round his neck, precisely as a schoolboy 
will sit with his friend ; and rapidly grinning at a third, as if to 
keep him off. The grin consisted of that incessant and apparently 
malignant retraction of the lips over the teeth, w r hich looks as if 
it were every instant going to say something, and break forth into 
threat and abuse. The monkey that was thus kept off, leaped up 
every now and then towards the parties (who were sitting on a 
shelf), and gave a smart slap of the hand to the protecting indi- 
vidual, or received one instead. We did not know enough of their 
habits to judge whether it was play or warfare ; w T hether the 
assailant wished to injure the one that seemed protected, or 
whether the protector wrongly or rightly kept him away, from 
jealousy or from sport. At length the prohibited individual was 
allowed quietly to make one of the trio ; and there he sat, nestling 
himself against the protige, and so remained as long as we saw 
them. The probability therefore was, that it was all sport and 
good humour, and that the whole trio were excellent friends. 

Nations of a very different sort from Africans have seen such 
a likeness between men and monkeys, that the Hindoos have a 



A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 47 

celebrated monkey- general (Hanuman), who cuts a figure in their 
mythology and their plays, and was a friend of the god Rama.* 
Young readers (nor old ones, who have wit or good spirits enough 
to remain young) need not be reminded of the monkey in Philip 
Quarll; nor of him that became secretary to a sultan in the 
Arabian Nights. After all, let nobody suppose that it is the 
intention of these remarks to push the analogy between the two 
classes further than is warrantable, or to lessen the real amount 
of the immeasurable distance between them. But anything that 
looks like humanity on the part of the poor little creature need 
not be undervalued for all that, or merely because we pay it the 
involuntary compliment of a mortified jealousy. And as to its 
face, there is unquestionably a look of reflection in it, and of care 
too, which ought not to be disrespected. Its worst feature is the 
inefficient nose, arguing, it would seem, an infirmity of purpose 
to any strong endeavour (if such arguments are derivable from 
such things) ; and yet, as if to show her love of comedy, and 
render the class a riddle for alternate seriousness and laughter, 
Nature has produced a species of ape, ludicrous for the length of 
this very feature, j Nature has made levity as well as gravity ; 
and really seems inclined, now and then, to play a bit of farce in 
her own person, as the gods did on Mount Olympus with Vulcan — 

" When unextinguished laughter shook the skies." 

Fit neighbours for the monkeys are the parrakeets — them- 
selves, in some respects, a kind of monkey-bird — with claws 
which they use like hands, a faculty of imitation in voice, and 
something in the voice so like speech and articulation, that one 
almost fancies the guttural murmuring about to break out into 
words and say something. But what colours ! — What blazes of 
red and gold, of green, blue, and all sorts of the purest splen- 
dours ! How must those reds and blues look, when thronging 
and shining amidst the amber-tops of their trees, under a tropical 
sun ! And for whose eyes are those colours made ? Hardly for 
man's — for man does not see a hundred-millionth part of them, 
nor perhaps would choose to live in a condition for seeing them, 
at least not in their true state ; unless, indeed, he should come to 

* Wilson's Select Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus. For an 
account of a festival in honour of Kama, in which his monkey-friend is 
conspicuous, see Bishop Heber's Journal, chap. xiii. 

f The Simla Rostrata — " long-nosed ape." " It is simia, but not sima" 
says Blumenbach, " being remarkable for its long proboscis-like nose." 



48 A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 

like their screaming in the woods, for the same reason that we 
like the cawing of rooks. Meantime they would appear to be 
made for their own. " Why not?" asks somebody. True, but 
we are not accustomed to consider them in that light, or as made 
for any other purpose than for some distinction or attraction of 
sex. In nothing, however, does Nature seem to take more delight 
than in colours ; and perhaps (to guess reverently, not profanely) 
these gorgeous hues are intended for the pleasure of some un- 
known class of spiritual eyes, upon which no kind of beauty is 
lost, as it is too often upon man's. It is impossible to picture to 
one's-self the countless beauties of nature, the myriads of paint- 
ings, animal, vegetable, and mineral, with which earth, air, and 
seas are thronged, and fancy them all made for no eyes but man's. 
Neither is it easy to suppose that other animals have eyes, and 
yet look upon these riches of the eyesight with no feeling of 
admiration analogous to our own. The peacock's expansion of 
his plumage, and the apparent pride he takes in it, force us to 
believe otherwise in his particular case ; and yet, with our ten- 
dency to put the worst or least handsome construction on what 
our inferior fellow-creatures do, we attribute to pride, jealousy, 
and other degrading passions, what may really be attributable to 
something better ; nor may it be pride in the peacock, which 
induces him to display his beauty, but some handsomer joy in the 
beauty itself. You may call every man who dresses well a cox- 
comb — but it is possible he is not so. He may do it for the 
same reason that he dresses his room well with pictures, or loves 
to see his wife well dressed. He may be such an admirer of the 
beautiful in all things, that he cannot omit a sense of it even in 
his own attire. Raphael is understood to have been an elegant 
dresser ; and it has been conjectured from a sonnet of Shakspeare's 
(No. 146) that he was one. Yet who could suppose Shakspeare a 
coxcomb ? much less proud ! He had too much to be proud of 
in petty eyes, to be so in his own — standing, as he did, a wise 
and kind atom, but still an atom; in the midst of the overwhelming 
magnificence of nature, and the mysteries of worlds. The same 
attention to dress is recorded of the grave philosopher, Aristotle ; 
and the story of Plato's carpet, and of the " greater pride " with 
which Diogenes trampled upon it, is well known. Now, inasmuch 
as pride is an attribute of narrowness of spirit and want of know- 
ledge, the lower animals may undoubtedly be' subject to it, — 
though, still, to be proud of a colour and of external beauty would 
imply an association of ideas more subtle than we are accustomed 



A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 49 

to attribute to them ; and proud or not, there appears great 
reason to believe, that conscious of these colours and beauties 
they are. If so, the eyes of a crowd of parrakeets and maccaws, 
assembled in the place before us, must have a constant feast. 
Does their talk mean to say anything of this ? Is it divided 
between an admiration of one another, and their dinner ? For, 
assuredly, they do talk of something or other, from morning till 
night, like a roomful of French milliners ; and apparently, they 
ought to be as fond of colours, and of their own appearance. 
These lively and brilliant creatures seem the happiest in the 
Gardens, next to the ducks and sparrows ; the latter of whom, by 
the way, are in exquisite luck here, having a rich set of neigh- 
bours brought them, without partaking of their imprisonment. It 
would be delightful to see them committing their thefts upon cage 
and pan, if it were not for the creatures caged. 

And the poor eagles and vultures ! The very instinct of 
this epithet shows what an unnatural state they must have been 
brought to. Think of eagles being commiserated, and called 
" poor ! " It is monstrous to see any creature in a cage, far more 
any winged creature, and most of all, such as are accustomed to 
soar through the vault of heaven, and have the world under their 
eye. Look at the eyes of these birds here, these eagles and 
vultures ! How strangely clouded now seems that grand and 
stormy depression of the eyelid, drawn with that sidelong air of 
tightness, fierceness, and threat, as if by the brush of some 
mighty painter. That is an eye for the clouds and the subject- 
earth, not for a miserable hencoop. And see, poor flagging 
wretches ! how they stand on their perches, each at a little 
distance from one another, in poor stationary exhibition, eagles 
all of a row ! — quiet, impaired, scrubby ; almost motionless ! 
Are these the sovereign creatures described by the Buffons and 
Mudies, by the Wilsons of ornithology and poetry, by Spenser, 
by Homer ? Is this the eagle of Pindar, heaving his moist back 
in sleep upon the sceptre of Jove, under the influence of the music 
of the gods ? * Is this the bird of the English poet, 

" Soaring through his wide empire of the air, 
To weather his broad vans ? " 



* Gray's translation, "Perching on the sceptred hand," &c, is very 
fine ; but he has omitted this exquisite epithet of the eagle's sleep, moist 
(yyoov), so full of the depth of rest and luxury. Gilbert West's version of 

4 



50 A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 

Wonderful and admirable is the quietness, the philosophy, or 
whatever you choose to call it, with which all the creatures in 
this place, the birds in particular, submit themselves to their 
destiny. They do not howl and cry, brutes though they be ; they 
do not endeavour to tear their chains up, or beat down their dens ; 
they find the contest hopeless, and they handsomely and wisely 
give it up. It is true, their wants are attended to as far as 
possible, and they have none of the more intolerable wants of self- 
love and wounded vanity — no vindictiveness seemingly, nor the 
love of pure obstinate opposition, and of seeing whose will can get 
the day. If they cannot have liberty, they will not disgrace 
captivity. But then what a loss to them is that of liberty ! It is 
thought by some, that all which they care for is their food ; and 
that, having plenty of this, they must be comfortable. But 
feeding, though a pleasure of life, is not the end of it ; it is only 
one of its pleasurable supports. Or grant it even to be one of 
the ends of life, as indeed it may be considered by reason of its 
being a pleasure, more especially with some animals (not excepting 
some human ones), still, consider what a far greater portion of 
existence is passed by all creatures in the exercise of their other 
faculties, and in some form of motion ; so much so, that even 
food would seem not so much an object of the exercise, as a means 
of it — life itself being motion in pulse and thought. Then think 
of how much of the very spirit of their existence all imprisoned 
creatures are deprived. 

The truth is, that if a man has happened, by the circum- 
stances of his life, to feel and endure much — to enjoy much, and 
to know what it is to be deprived of enjoyment — and, above all, 
to know what this very want of liberty is — this confinement for a 
long time to one spot — the sight of these Gardens ends in making 
him more melancholy than comfortable. Hating to interfere with 
other people's pleasures, or to seem to pretend to be wiser or 
better than our neighbours (especially when speaking, as circum- 

the passage has merit, but he wanted gusto enough to venture on this epithet. 
Cary (thanks to his Dantesquc studies) has not dishonoured it. 

" Jove's eagle on the sceptre slumbers, 
Possest by thy enchanting numbers ; 
On either side, his rapid wing 
Drops, intranced, the featherM king ; 
Black vapour o'er his curved head 
Sealing his eyelids, sweetly shed, 
Upheaving his moist back he lies, 
Held down by thrilling harmonics." — Cary's Pindar, p. 02. 



A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 51 

stances sometimes render expedient, in our own name), we did 
not well know how to get this truth out of our lips, till seeing the 
interesting article in the Quarterly Review on the same subject, 
and finding the writer confessing that he could never pass by 
these eagles " without a pang," we felt that we might protest 
against the whole business of captivity with the less hazard of a 
charge of immodesty and self- opinion.* Let us not be under- 
stood as implying blame against any one. We have the greatest 
respect for the persons and motives of gentlemen who compose 
the Zoological Society, and who have (as already hinted) given a 
prodigious lift in the scale of comfort to creatures hitherto worse 
dealt with in shows and menageries. Their zeal in behalf of the 
general interests of knowledge and humanity is, we have no doubt, 
fervid ; and their plea, in the present instance, is obvious, and 
(unless Parliament chose to answer it) unanswerable. If they did 
not take charge of animals for exhibition, others ivould, and would 
do it badly ; and the old system would return. There would be 
no such handsome prisons for them any longer as the Marylebone 
and Surrey Gardens. Granted. We are only restoring the prin- 
ciple to its element, or pushing the abstract defence of the whole 
system to its utmost, and trying whether it would stand the test 
of a final judgment, if action were free, and prohibition could be 
secured. 

And why could it not ? Why can we have Acts of Parlia- 
ment in favour of other extension of good treatment to the brute 
creation, and not one against their tormenting imprisonment ? 
At all events, we may ask meantime, and perhaps not uselessly 
even for present purposes, whether a great people, under a still 
finer aspect of knowledge and civilization than at present, would 

* " But we must bend our steps to the eagle-house, and we confess we 
never pass it by without a pang. Eagles, laemergyers, condors, creatures 
of the element, born to soar over Alps and Andes, in helpless, hopeless, 
imprisonment. Observe the upper glance of that golden eagle, — ay, look 
upon that glorious orb — it shines wooingly : how impossible is it to anni- 
hilate hope !— he spreads his ample wings, springs towards the fountain 
of light, strikes the netting, and flaps heavily down : — ' Lasciate ogni 
speranza, voi ch 'entrate.' We know not what their worships would say 
or do to us, if we were to work our wicked will ; but we never see these 
unfortunates without an indescribable longing to break their bonds, and let 
the whole bevy of these 

* Souls made of fire and children of the sun 9 
wander free." 



52 A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 

think themselves warranted in keeping any set of fellow- creatures 
in a state of endless captivity — their faculties contradicted, their 
very lives, for the most part, turned into lingering deaths ? Every 
now and then the lions and other animals in these places dis- 
appear. They die off from some malady or other, either of 
inactivity, or of some other contradiction to their natures, or from 
the soil or climate. The Quarterly Review thinks that the London 
clay is pernicious to the collection in Marylebone Gardens. The 
Surrey collection, though the smaller, is the healthier. But how 
long do the animals last there ? Or is captivity a good thing for 
them anywhere ? 

The main arguments in favour of such collections are, that 
they increase the stock of knowledge, encourage kindly feelings 
towards the lower creation, and tend to substitute rational for 
irrational amusements. They who object to them are warned, 
furthermore, how they render the imagination over-nice and 
sensitive, or make worse what cannot be helped ; and something 
is occasionally added respecting the perplexed question of good 
and evil, and the ordinances of Providence. We have not room 
to repeat what has been often said in answer to reasonings of this 
description, which, in truth, are but so many beggings of the 
question, all of them to be set aside till the first doubts of the 
manliest and most honest conscientiousness be disposed of. Pro- 
vidence is to be reverenced at all times, and its mysteries to be 
brought in, humbly, when man comes to the end of his own 
humble endeavours ; but till then it is not his business to play 
with the awful edge-tools of a right of providential force, and its 
mixture of apparent evil. He must do what his conscience tells 
him, all kindly, and nothing (where he can help it) with a mixture of 
unkindness ; and thus I know not how a conscientious naturalist, 
setting aside the argument that others will do worse, could allow 
himself, if nations were to come to such a pitch of refinement as 
above stated, to do the evil of imprisoning and withering away the 
lives of his fellow-animals, in order that some problematical good 
might come. 

A paragraph in the newspapers the other day, speaking of a 
lion that died after three years' incarceration (one in four of its 
whole life), said, that the Zoological Society have " never been 
able to keep any of the larger carnivora longer than that time ; 
they have lost (it adds) nine lions since January 1882." It is 
not easy to reconcile this statement with others which tell us of 
tens and twenties of years passed by lions and other beasts under 



" A VISIT TO THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 53 

the like circumstances. Imprisonments of that duration have 
been known in the Tower and other places — -jails far less favour- 
able, one would think, to the lives of the inmates, than these open 
and flowery spots. The Society's catalogue informs us, that the 
grisly bear in their possession " was brought to England upwards 
of twenty years since by the Hudson Bay Company," and that it 
remained in the Tower till the accession of his present Majesty. 
And their harpy eagle was caught in 1822. Long life in a prison, 
however, is a very different thing from natural life out of it. 

At all events, on the principle of doing the very best possible, 
would it not be desirable, nay, is it not imperative on societies 
possessed of funds, to enlarge even the better accommodation they 
have provided, to give elephants and giraffes still greater ranges ; 
and, above all, to supply far better dens to the lions and tigers, 
&c. ? For deus they still are, of the narrowest description.* 

* Since the date of these remarks, the improvements here desired, we 
understand, have taken place. The main objection, however, remains to 
he answered. 



( 54 ) 



A MAN INTRODUCED TO HIS ANCESTORS. 

ASTONISHING AMOUNT OF A MAN'S ANCESTORS AT THE TWENTIETH REMOVE 
— THE VARIETY OF RANKS AS GREAT AS THE MULTITUDE — BODILY AND 
MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS INHERITED — WHAT IT BECOMES A MAN TO 
CONSIDER AS THE RESULT. 

Happening to read the other evening some observations respecting 
the geometrical ratio of descent, by which it appears that a man 
has, at the twentieth remove, one million forty-eight thousand Jive 
hundred and seventy-six ancestors in the lineal degree — r/ratid fathers 
and grandmothers, — I dropped into a reverie, during which I 
thought I stood by myself at one end of an immense public place, 
the other being occupied with a huge motley assembly, whose 
faces were all turned towards me. I had lost my ordinary sense 
of individuality, and fancied that my name was Manson. 

At this multitudinous gaze, I felt the sort of confusion which 
is natural to a modest man, and which almost makes us believe 
that we have been guilty of some crime without knowing it. But 
what was my astonishment, when a Master of the Ceremonies 
issued forth, and saluting me by the title of his great-grandson, 
introduced me to the assembly in the manner and form fol- 
lowing : — 

May it please your Majesties and his Holiness the Pope ; 

My Lord Cardinals, may it please your most reverend and 
illustrious Eminences ; 

May it please your graces, my Lord Dukes ; 

My Lords, and Ladies, and Lady Abbesses ; 

Sir Charles, give me leave ; Sir Thomas also, Sir John, Sir 
Nicholas, Sir William, Sir Owen, Sir Hugh, &c. 

Right Worshipful the several Courts of Aldermen ; 

Mesdames the Married Ladies ; 

Mesdames the Nuns and other Maiden Ladies ; — Messieurs 
Manson, Womanson, Jones, Hervey, Smith, Merryweatber, 
Hipkins, Jackson, Johnson, Jephson, Damant, Delavigne, De la 
Bleterie, Macpherson, Scott, O'Bryan, O'Shaughnessy, O'Halloran, 
Clutterbuck, Brown, White, Black, Lindygreen, Southey, Pip, 
Trip, Chedorlaomer (who the devil, thought I, is he ?), Morandi, 



A MAN INTRODUCED TO HIS ANCESTORS. 55 

Moroni, Ventura, Mazarin, D'Orsay, Puckering, Pickering, Had- 
don, Somerset, Kent, Franklin, Hunter, Le Fevre, Le Roi (more 
French !), Du Val (a highwayman, by all that's gentlemanly !), 
Howard, Cavendish, Russell, Argentine, Gustafson, Olafson, 
Bras-de-feu, Sweyn, Hacho and Tycho, Price, Lloyd, Llewellyn, 
Hanno, Hiram, &c, and all you intermediate gentlemen, reverend 
and otherwise, with your infinite sons, nephews, uncles, grand- 
fathers, and all kinds of relations ; — 

Then, you, sergeants and corporals, and other pretty fellows ; — 

You footmen there, and coachmen younger than your wigs, — 

You gipsies, pedlars, criminals, Botany-Bay men, old Romans, 
informers, and other vagabonds, — 

Gentlemen and ladies, one and all, — 

Allow me to introduce to you, your descendant, Mr. Manson. 
. Mr> Manson, your Axcestoks. 

"What a sensation ! 

I made the most innumerable kind of bow I could think of, 
and was saluted with a noise like that of a hundred oceans. 
Presently I was in the midst of the uproar, which became like a 
fair of the human race. 

Dreams pay as little attention to ceremony, as the world of 
which they are supposed to form a part. The gentleman -usher 
was the only person who retained a regard for it. Pope Innocent 
himself was but one of the crowd. I saw him elbowed and 
laughing among a parcel of lawyers. It was the same with the 
dukes and the princes. One of the kings was familiarly addressed 
by a lord of the bed-chamber, as Tom Wildman ; and a little 
French page had a queen much older than himself by the arm, 
whom he introduced to me as his daughter. I discerned very 
plainly my immediate ancestors the Mansons, but could not get 
near enough to speak to them, by reason of a motley crowd, who, 
with all imaginable kindness, seemed as if they would have torn 
me to pieces. " This is my arm," said one, " as sure as fate ; " 
at the same time seizing me by the wrist. " The Franklin 
shoulder," cried another. A gay fellow pushing up to me, and 
giving me a lively shake, exclaimed, " The family mouth, by the 
Lord Harry ! and the eye — there's a bit of my father in the eye." 
— "A very little bit, please your honour," said a gipsy, a real 
gipsy, thrusting in her brown face : " all the rest's mine, Kitty 
Lee's, and the eyebrows are Johnny Faw's to a hair." — " The 
right leg is my property, however," returned the beau : " I'll swear 
to the calf." — " Mais — but — notta to cle autre calf" added a 



56 A MAN INTRODUCED TO HIS ANCESTORS. 

ludicrous voice, half gruff and half polite, belonging to a fantastic- 
looking person, whom I found to be a dancing-master. I did not 
care for the gipsy ; but to owe my left leg to a dancing-master 
was not quite so pleasant, especially as, like Mr. Bruniinel's, it 
happens to be my favourite leg. Besides, I cannot dance. How- 
ever, the truth must out. My left leg is more of a man's than 
my right, and yet it certainly originated with Mons. Fauxpas. 
He came over from France in the train of the Duke of Bucking- 
ham. The rest of me went in the same manner. A Catholic 
priest was rejoiced at the sight of my head of hair, though by 
no means remarkable but for quantity ; but it seems he never 
expected to see it again since he received the tonsure. A little 
coquette of quality laid claim to my nose, and a more romantic 
young lady to my chin. I could not say my soul was my own. I 
was claimed not only by the Mansons, but by a little timy boy, a 
bold patriot, a moper, a merryandrew, a coxcomb, a hermit, 
a voluptuary, a water-drinker, a Greek of the name of Pythias, 
a freethinker, a religionist, a bookworm, a simpleton, a beggar, a 
philosopher, a triumphant cosmopolite, a trembling father, a hack- 
author, an old soldier dying with harness on his buck. 

" Well," said I, looking at this agreeable mixture of claimants, 
11 at any rate my vices are not my own." 

" And how many virtues ? " cried they in stern voice. 
" Gentlemen," said I, "if you had waited, you would have 
seen that I could give up one as well as the other ; that is to say, 
as far as either can be given up by a nature that partakes of ye 
all. I see very plainly, that all which a descendant no better 
than myself has to do, is neither to boast of his virtues, nor 
pretend exemption from his vices, nor be overcome with his 
misfortunes ; but solely to regard the great mixture of all as 
gathered together in his person, and to try what he can do with 
it for the honour of those who preceded him, and the good of 
those that come after." 

At this I thought the whole enormous assembly put on a very 
earnest but affectionate nice ; which was a fine sight. A noble 
humility was in the looks of the best. Tears, not without dignity, 
stood in the eyes of the worst. 

" It is late for me," added I ; " I can do little. But I will 
tell this vision to the younger and stouter; they perhaps may do 
mere." 

" Go and tell it," answered the multitude. But the noise was 
SO loud, that I awoke, and found my little child crowing in my ear. 



( 57 ) 



A NOVEL PARTY. 

u — Hie ingentem comitum affluxisse novorum 
Invenio admirans numerum." — Virgil. 

O the pleasure that attends 

Such Sowings in of novel friends ! 

spiritual creations more real than corporeal — a party composed 

of the heroes and heroines of noyels mr. moses primrose, 

wh(khas resolved not to be cheated, is delighted with some 
information given him by mr. peregrine pickle — conversation 
of the author with the celebrated pamela — arrivals of the 

rest of the company the party found to consist of four 

smaller parties characters of them character of mr. 

abraham adams pamela's distress at her brother's want of 

breeding settlement together of lovelace and clarissa 

Desmond's waverley asks after the antiquary's waverley — 
his surprise at the coincidence of the adventure on the sea- 
shore misunderstanding between mrs. slipslop and mrs. 

clinker — the ladies criticized while putting on their cloaks. 

When people speak of the creations of poets and novelists, they 
are accustomed to think that they are only using a form of speech. 
We fancy that nothing can be created which is not visible ; — that 
a being must be as palpable as Dick or Thomas, before we can 
take him for granted ; and that nobody really exists, who will not 
die like the rest of us, and be forgotten. But as we have no 
other certainty of the existence of the grossest bodies, than by 
their power to resist or act upon us, — as all which Hipkins has 
to show for his entity is his power to consume a barrel of oysters, 
and the only proof which Tomkins can bring of his not being a 
figment is his capacity of receiving a punch in the stomach, — I 
beg leave to ask the candid reader, how he can prove to me that 
all the heroes and heroines that have made him hope, fear, admire, 
hate, love, shed tears, and laugh till his sides were ready to burst, 
in novels and poems, are not in possession of as perfect creden- 
tials of their existence as the fattest of us ? Common physical 
palpability is only a proof of mortality. The particles that crowd 
and club together to form such obvious compounds as Tomson 



58 A NOVEL PARTY. 

and Jackson, and to be able to resist death for a little while, are 
fretted away by a law of their very resistance ; but the immortal 
people in Pope and Fielding, the deathless generations in Chaucer, 
in Shakspeare, in Goldsmith, in Sterne, and Le Sage, and 
Cervantes, — acquaintances and friends who remain for ever the 
same, whom we meet at a thousand turns, and know as well as 
we do our own kindred, though we never set gross corporeal eyes 
on them, — what is the amount of the actual effective existence of 
millions of Jacksons and Tomkinses compared with theirs ? Are 
we as intimate, I wish to know, with our aunt, as we are with 
Miss Western ? Could we not speak to the character of Tom 
Jones in any court in Christendom ? Are not scores of clergy- 
men continually passing away in this transitory world, gone and 
forgotten, while Parson Adams remains as stout and hearty as 
ever ? 

But w 7 hy need I waste my time in asking questions ? I have 
lately had the pleasure of seeing a whole party of these immortal 
acquaintances of ours assembled at once. It was on the 15th of 
February in the present year. I was sitting by my fireside ; and, 
being in the humour to have more company than I could procure, 
I put on my Wishing- cap, and found myself in a new little world 
that hovers about England, like the Flying Island of Gulliver. 
The place immediately above me resembled a common drawing- 
room at the West End of the town, and a pretty large evening- 
party were already assembled, waiting for more arrivals. A 
stranger would have taken them for masqueraders. Some of the 
gentlemen wore toupees, others only powder, others their own 
plain head of hair. Some had swords by their sides, others none. 
Here were beaux in the modern coat and waistcoat, or habili- 
ments little different. There stood coats stuck out with buckram, 
and legs with stockings above the knees. The appearance of the 
ladies presented an equal variety. Some wore hoops, others plain 
petticoats. The heads of many were built up with prodigious 
edifices of hair and ribbon ; others had their curls flowing down 
their necks ; some were in common shoes, others in a kind of 
slippered stilts. In short, not to keep the reader any longer upon 
trifles, the company consisted of the immortal though familiar 
creatures I speak of, the heroes ami heroines of the wouderful 
persons who have lived among us, called Novelists. 

Judge of my delight when I found myself among a set of old 
acquaintances, whom I had never expected to see in this manner. 
Conceive how I felt, when I discovered that the gentleman and 



A NOVEL PARTY. 59 

lady I was sitting next to were Captain and Mrs. Booth ; and 
that another couple on my left, very brilliant and decorous, were 
no less people than Sir Charles and my Lady Grandison ! In the 
centre were Mr. and Mrs. Roderick Random ; Lieutenant Thomas 
Bowling, of the Royal Navy ; Mr. Morgan, a Welch gentleman ; 
Mr. and Mrs. Peregrine Pickle ; Mr. Fathom, a Methodist — (a 
very ill-looking fellow) — Sir George Paradyne, and Mr. Herms- 
prong ; Mr. Desmond, with his friend Waverley (a relation of the 
more famous Waverley) ; a young gentleman whose Christian 
name was Henry — (I forget the other, but Mr. Cumberland 
know r s), and Mr., formerly Serjeant Atkinson, with his wife, who 
both sat next to Captain and Mrs. Booth. There were also some 
lords whose names I cannot immediately call to mind ; a lady of 
rank, who had once been a Beggar-girl ; and other persons too 
numerous to mention. In a corner, very modest and pleasing, 
sat Lady Harold, better known as Miss Louisa Mildmay, with her 
husband, Sir Robert. From the mixed nature of the company, a 
spectator might have concluded that these immortal ladies and 
gentlemen were free from the ordinary passions of created beings ; 
but I soon observed that it was otherwise. I found that some of 
the persons already assembled had arrived at this plebeian hour 
out of an ostentation of humility ; and that the others, who came 
later, were influenced by the usual variety of causes. 

The next arrival — (conceive how my heart expanded at the 
sight) — consisted of the Rev. Dr. Primrose, Vicar of Wakefield, 
with his family, and the Miss Flamboroughs ; the latter red and 
staring with delight. The Doctor apologized for not being sooner ; 
but Mrs. Primrose said she was sure the gentlefolks would excuse 
him, knowing that people accustomed to good society were never 
in a flurry on such occasions. Her husband would have made 
some remark on this ; but seeing that she was prepared to appeal 
to her son, "the Squire," who flattered and made her his butt, 
and that Sir William Thornhill and both the young married ladies 
would be in pain, he forbore. The Vicar made haste to pay his 
respects to Sir Charles and Lady Grandison, who treated him 
with great distinction, Sir Charles taking him by the hand, and 
calling him his " good and worthy friend." I observed that Mr. 
Moses Primrose had acquired something of a collected and 
cautious look, as if determined never to be cheated again. He 
happened to seat himself next to Peregrine Pickle, who informed 
him, to his equal surprise and delight, that Captain Booth had 
written a refutation of Materialism, He added, that the Captain 



60 A NOVEL PARTY. 

did not choose at present to be openly talked of as the author, 
though he did not mind being complimented upon it in an obscure 
and ingenious way. I noticed, after this, that a game of cross 
purposes was going on between Booth and Moses, which often 
forced a blush from the Captain's lady. It was with much 
curiosity I recognized the defect in the latter's nose. I did not 
find it at all in the way when I looked at her lips. It appeared to 
me even to excite a kind of pity, by no means injurious to the 
most physical admiration ; but I did not say this to Lady Grandi- 
son, who asked my opinion on the subject. Booth was a fine 
strapping fellow, though he had not much in his face. When 
Mr. and Mrs. Booby (the famous Pamela) afterwards came in, he 
attracted so much attention from the latter, that upon her asking 
me, with a sort of pitying smile, what I thought of him, I ven- 
tured to say, in a pun, that I looked upon him as a very good 
" Booth for the Fair;" upon which, to my astonishment, she 
blushed as red as scarlet, and told me that her dear Mr. B. did 
not approve of such speeches. My pun was a mere pun, and 
meant little ; certainly nothing to the disadvantage of the senti- 
mental part of the sex, for whom I thought him by no means a 
finished companion. But there is no knowing these precise 
people. 

But I anticipate the order of the arrivals. The Primroses 
were followed by Sir Launcelot Greaves and his lady, Mr. and 
Mrs. Thomas Jones, Mr. and Miss Western, and my Lady Bel- 
laston. Then came Miss Monimia (I forget her name) who 
married out of the old Manor House ; then Mr. and Mrs. Hum- 
phrey Clinker (I believe I should rather say Bramble), with old 
Matthew himself, and Mrs. Lismahago ; and then a whole world 
of Aunt Selbys, and Grandmamma Selbys, and Miss Howes, and 
Mr. Harlowes, though I observed neither Clarissa nor Lovelace. 
I made some inquiries about them afterwards, which the reader 
shall hear. 

Enter Mr. John Buncle, escorting five ladies, whom he had 
been taking to an evening lecture. Tom Gollogher was behind 
them, very merry. 

Then came my Lord and Lady Orville (Evelina), Mr. and 
Mrs. Delville (Cecilia), Camilla (I forget her surname), with a 
large party of Mandleberts, Clarendels, Arlberys, Orkbornes, 
Marglands, and Dubsters, not omitting the eternal Mrs. Mitten. 
Mrs. Booby and husband came last, accompanied by my Lady 
Booby, Mr. Joseph Andrews and bride, and the ltev. Mr, Adams, 



A NOVEL PARTY. 61 

for whom Mrs. B. made a sort of apology, by informing us that 
there was no necessity to make any, — Mr. Adams being an honour 
to the cloth. Fanny seated herself by Sophia Western (that was), 
wdth whom I found she was intimate ; and a lovelier pair of 
blooming, unaffected creatures, whose good-nature stood them 
instead of w r it, I never beheld. But I must discuss the beauties 
of the ladies by-and-by. 

An excuse was sent by Mr. Tristram Shandy for his Uncle 
Tobias, saying that they were confined at home, and unfit for 
company, which made me very sorry, for I would rather have seen 
the divine old invalid than any man in the room, not excepting 
Parson Adams. I suspect he knew nothing of the invitation. 
Corporal Trim brought the letter ; a very honest, pathetic fellow, 
who dropped a tear. He also gave a kiss, as he w T ent out, to 
one of the maid-servants. The Rev. Mr. Yorick, friend of the 
Shandy family, sent his servant La Fleur to wait on us ; a brisk, 
active youth, who naturalized himself among us by adoring the 
ladies all round. The poor lad manifested his admiration by 
various grimaces, that forced the Miss Flamboroughs to stuff their 
handkerchiefs in their mouths. Our other attendants were Strap, 
Tom Pipes, Partridge, and two or three more, some of them 
in livery, and others not, as became their respective ranks. The 
refreshments were under the care of Mrs. Slipslop ; but under- 
went, as they came up, a jealous revision from Mrs. Lismahago 
and Mrs. Humphrey Clinker, w r ho, luckily for her, differed con- 
siderably with one another, or none would have been worth 
eating. 

I have omitted to observe that the meeting was of the same 
nature wdth assemblies in country towms, where all the inhabitants, 
of any importance, are in the habit of coming together for the 
public advantage, and being amiable and censorious. There the 
Sir Charles Grandison of the place meets the Tom Jones and 
the Mrs. Humphrey Clinker. There the Lady Bellaston inter- 
changes courtesies and contempt with the Miss Marglands ; and 
all the Dubsters in their new yellow gloves, with all the Del- 
villes. 

Having thus taken care of our probabilities (or verisimilitude, 
as the critics call it), to which, in our highest flights, we are 
much attached, we proceed with our narrative. 

We forgot to mention that Mrs. Honour, the famous waiting- 
maid of Sophia Western, was not present. Nothing could in- 
duce her to figure as a servant, where that " infected upstart," as 



G2 A NOVEL PARTY. 

she called her, Mrs. Humphrey Clinker, fidgeted ahout as a 
gentlewoman. 

The conversation soon hecame very entertaining, particularly 
in the hands of the Grandisons and Harlowes, who, though we 
could perceive they were not so admired by the rest of the 
company as by one another, interested us in spite of ourselves by 
the longest and yet most curious gossip in the world. Sir Charles 
did not talk so much as the others ; indeed he seemed to be a 
little baffled and thrust off the pinnacle of his superiority in this 
very mixed society ; but he was thought a prodigious fine gentle- 
man by the gravest of us, and was really a good-natured one. 
His female friends, who were eternally repeating and deprecating 
their own praises, were pronounced by Hermsprong, as well as 
Peregrine Pickle, to be the greatest coxcombs under the sun. 
The latter said something about Pamela and Covent Garden which 
we do not choose to repeat. The consciousness of doing their 
duty, however, mixed as it might be with these vain mistakes, 
gave a certain tranquillity of character to the faces of some of this 
party, which Peregrine, and some others about him, might have 
envied. At the same time, we must do the justice to Peregrine to 
say, that although (to speak plainly) he had not a little of the 
blackguard in him, he displayed some generous qualities. We 
cannot say much for his wit and talents, which are so extolled by 
the historian ; nor even for those of his friend, Eoderick Random, 
though he carries some good qualities still further. Roderick's 
conversation had the vice of coarseness, to the great delight of 
Squire Western, who said he had more spirit than Tom himself. 
Tom did not care for a little freedom, but the sort of conversation 
to which Roderick and his friends were inclined disgusted him ; 
and, before women, astonished him. He did not, therefore, very 
well fall in with this society, though his wit and views of things 
were, upon the whole, pretty much on a par with theirs. In 
person and manners he beat them hollow. Sophia nevertheless 
took very kindly to Emily Gauntlett and Narcissa, two ladies 
rather insipid. 

We observed that the company might be divided into four 
different sorts. One was Sir Charles Grandison's and party ; 
another, the Pickles and Joneses ; a third, the Lord Orvilles, 
Evelinas, and Cecilias, with the young lady from the old Manor 
House ; and a fourth, the Hermsprongs, Desmonds, and others, 
including a gentleman we have forgotten to mention, Mr. Hugh 
Trevor. In this last were some persons whose names we ought to 



A NOVEL PARTY. 63 

have remembered, for an account of whom we must refer to Mrs. 
Inchbald. The first of these parties were for carrying all the 
established conventional virtues to a high pitch of dignity ; so 
much so, as to be thinking too much of the dignity, while 
they fancied they were absorbed in the virtue. They were very 
clever and amusing, and we verily believe could have given an 
interest to a history of every grain of sand on the sea-shore ; 
but their garrulity and vanity, united, rendered otber conversation 
a refreshment. The second were a parcel of wild, but not ill- 
natured young fellows, all very ready to fall in with what the 
others thought and recommended, and to forget it the next 
moment, especially as their teachers laid themselves open to 
ridicule. It must be added, that their very inferiority in some 
respects gave them a more general taste of humanity, particularly 
Tom Jones ; who was as pleasant, unaffected a fellow, and upon 
the whole perhaps as virtuous, in his way, as could be expected 
of a sprightly blood educated in the ordinary fashion. The 
Camillas and Evelinas were extremely entertaining, and told us a 
number of stories that made us die with laughter. Their fault 
consisted in talking too much about lords and pawnbrokers. 
Miss Monimia, too, from the old Manor House, ridiculed vulgarity 
a little too much to be polite. The most puzzling people in the 
room were the Desmonds and Hugh Trevors, who had come up 
since a late revolution in our sphere. They got into a controversy 
with the Grandisons, and reduced them sadly to their precedents 
and authorities. The conclusion of the company seemed to be, 
that if the world were to be made different from what it is, the 
change would be effected rather by the philosophies of these 
gentlemen than the seraphics of the other party ; bat the general 
opinion was, that it would be altered by neither, and that in the 
meantime, " variety was charming;" a sentiment which the 
Vicar of Wakefield took care to explain to his wife. 

But how are we forgetting ourselves ? We have left out, in 
our divisions, a fifth set, the most delightful of all, one of whom 
is a whole body of humanity in himself; to-wit, Mr. Abraham 
Adams, and all whom he loves. We omit his title of Reverend ; 
not because he is not so, but because titles are things exclusive, 
and our old friend belongs to the whole world. Bear witness, 
spirit of everything that is true, that, with the exception of one 
or two persons, only to be produced in these latter times, we love 
such a man as Abraham Adams better than all the characters in 
all the histories of the world, orthodox or not orthodox. We 



64 A NOVEL PARTY. 

hold him to be only inferior to a Shakspeare ; and only then, 
because the latter joins the height of wisdom intellectual to 
his wisdom cordial. He should have been Shakspeare's chaplain, 
and played at bowls with him. What a sound heart. — and a fist 
to stand by ifc ! This is better than Sir Charles's fencing, with- 
out which his polite person — (virtue included) — would often have 
been in an awkward way. What disinterestedness ! What feel- 
ing ! What real modesty ! What a harmless spice of vanity, — 
Nature's kind gift, — the comfort we all treasure more or less about 
us, to keep ourselves in heart with ourselves ? In fine, what a 
regret of his iEschylus ! and a delicious forgetting that he could 
not see to read if he had had it ! Angels should be painted with 
periwigs, to look like him. We confess, we prefer Fanny to 
Joseph Andrews, which will be pardoned us ; but the lad is a 
good lad ; and if poor Molly at the inn has forgiven him (which 
she ought to do, all things considered), we will forgive him our- 
selves, on the score of my Lady Booby. It is more than my 
Lady has done, though she takes a pride in patronizing the " in- 
nocent creatures," as she calls them. We are afraid, from what 
we saw this evening, that poor Joseph is not as well as he would 
be with his sister Pamela. When the refreshments came in, we 
observed her blush at his handing a plate of sandwiches to Mr. 
Adams. She called him to her in a whisper ; and asked him, 
whether he had forgotten that there was a footman in the room ? 

The arrival of the refreshments divided our company into a 
variety of small ones. The ladies got more together ; and the 
wines and jellies diffused a benevolent spirit among us all. We 
forgot our controversies, and were earnest only in the putting of 
cakes. John Buncle, however, stood talking and eating at a 
great rate with one of the philosophers. Somebody asked after 
Lovelace and Clarissa : for the reader need not be told, that it is 
only in a fictitious sens% that these personages are said to have 
died. They cannot die, being immortal. It seems that Lovelace 
and Clarissa live in a neighbouring quarter, called Romance ; a 
very grave place, where few of the company visited. We were 
surprised to hear that they lived in the same house ; that Love- 
lace had found out he had a liking for virtue in her own shape as 
well as Clarissa's, and that Clarissa thought she might as well 
forget herself so far as to encourage the man not to make a rascal 
and a madman of himself. This, at least, is the way that Tom 
Gollogher put it : for Tom undertook to be profound on the sub- 
ject, and very much startled us by his observations. He made an 



A NOVEL PABTY, 65 

application of a line in Milton, about Adam and Eve, which the 
more serious among us thought profane, and which indeed we are 
afraid of repeating : but Tom's good nature was so evident, as 
well as his wish to make the best of a bad case, that we chose to 
lay the more equivocal part of his logic to the account of his 
" wild way;" and for all that we saw to the contrary, he was a 
greater favourite with the ladies than ever. Desmond's friend 
Waverley asked us after his celebrated namesake. We told him 
he was going on very well, and was very like his relation ; a com- 
pliment which Mr. Waverley acknowledged by a bow. We related 
to him the seaside adventure of Waverley's friend, the Antiquary; 
at which the other exclaimed, " Good God ! how. like an adven- 
ture which happened to a friend of our acquaintance ? only see 
what coincidences will take place ! " He asked us if the Antiquary 
had never noticed the resemblance, and was surprised to hear 
that he had not. " I should not wonder at it," said he, " if the 
incident had been well known ; but these Antiquaries, the best of 
them, have strange grudging humours; and I will tell him of it," 
added he, " when I see him." Mr. Waverley anticipated with 
great delight the society of his namesake with his numerous 
friends, though he did not seem to expect much from the female 
part of them. 

Before we broke up, tragical doings were likely to have oc- 
curred between the housekeeper and Mrs. Humphrey Clinker. 
Mrs. Slipslop sent up a message apologizing for some of the 
jellies. She expressed a fear — (which was correctly delivered 
by an impudent young rogue of a messenger) — that " the super- 
fluency of the sugar would take away the tastality of the jellies, 
and render them quite inoxious." (If the reader thinks this 
account overcharged, we have to inform him that he will fall into the 
error of the audience about the pig.) Mrs. Humphrey was indig- 
nant at this " infected nonsense," as s^e called it ; and she was 
fidgeting out of the room to scold the rhetorician, when her hus- 
band called her back, telling her that it was beneath the dignity 
of a rational soul like hers to fret itself with such matters. 
Winifred's blood began to rise at the first part of this observation ; 
but the words, " like hers," induced her to sit down, and content 
herself with an answer to the message. Peregrine Pickle, who 
was sorry to see affairs end so quietly, persuaded her, however, 
to put her message in writing; and Mrs. Slipslop would have 
inevitably been roused and brought upstairs, had not Sir Charles 
condescended to interfere. The answer was as follows : — 

5 



66 A NOVEL PARTY. 

" Mrs. Slibberslop, — 

" Hit Bing beneath the diggingit of a rasher and sole, to cumfabber- 
rate with sich parsons, I Desire that you wil send up sum geallies Fit for 
a cristum and a gentile wommun to Heat. We arc awl astonied Att yure 
niggling gents. The geallys ar Shamful." 

Peregrine begged her to add a word of advice respecting the 
" pompous apology ;" upon which she concluded thus : — 

" A nuthur tim doant Send up sich pumpers and Polly jeers and stuf ; 
and so no moar at present from 

" Yure wel wisker, 

" Winifred Clinker." 

When the ladies had put on their cloaks, and were waiting 
for their carriages, we could not but remark how well Sophia 
Weston — (we like to call her by her good old name) — looked in 
any dress and position. She was all ease and good-nature, and 
had a charming shape. Lady Grandison was a regular beauty ; 
but did not become a cloak. She was best in full dress. Pamela 
was a little soft-looking thing, who seemed " as if butter would 
not melt in her mouth." But she had something in the corner 
of her eye, which told you that you had better take care how you 
behaved yourself. She would look all round her at every man in 
the room, and hardly one of them be the wiser. Pamela was not 
so splendidly dressed as her friend Lady Grandison ; but her 
clothes were as costly. The Miss Howes, Lady G.'s, and others 
of that class, were loud, bright- eyed, raw-boned people, who 
tossed on their cloaks without assistance, or commanded your 
help with a sarcasm. Camilla, Cecilia, and Evelina, were all very 
handsome and agreeable. We prefer, from what we recollect of 
them, Camilla and Evelina ; but they say Cecilia is the most 
interesting. Louisa Mildmay might have been taken for a pale 
beauty ; but her paleness was not natural to her, and she was 
resuming her colour. Her figure was luxuriant ; and her eyes, 
we thought, had a depth in them beyond those of any person's in 
the room. We did not see much in Narcissa and Emilia Gaunt- 
lett, bat they were both good jolly damsels enough. Of Amelia 
we have spoken already. We have a recollection that Herin- 
sprong's wife (a Miss Campionet) was a pleasant girl ; but some- 
how she had got out of our sight. The daughters of the Vicar 
of Wakefield were line girls, especially Sophia ; for whom, being 
of her lover Sir William's age, we felt a particular tenderness. 



( 67 ) 



BEDS AND BEDROOMS. 

INTRINSICAL NATURE OF BED — ADVANTAGE OF PEOPLE IN BED OVER 
PEOPLE THAT ARE " UP " — DIALOGUE WITH A PERSON " UP " — 

FEATHER-BEDS, CURTAINS, &C. IDEA OF A PERFECT BEDROOM — 

CUSTOM HALF THE SECRET OF CONTENT — BEDROOM IN A COTTAGE 

— BED AT SEA — BEDS IN PRESSES AND ALCOVES ANECDOTES OF 

BEDS THE BED OF MORPHEUS IN SPENSER. 

We have written elsewhere* of " sleep," and of " dreams," and 
of " getting up on cold mornings," and divers other matters con- 
nected with bed ; but, unless we had written volumes on that one 
subject, it would be hard indeed if we could not find fresh matter 
to speak of, connected with the bed itself, and the room which it 
inhabits. We involuntarily use a verb with a human sense, — 
p inhabits ;" for of all goods and chattels, this surely contracts a 
kind of humanity from the warmth so often given to it by the 
comfortable soul within. Its pillows — as a philosophic punster 
might observe — have something in them " next to the human 
cheek." 

" Home is home," says the good proverb, " however homely." 
Equally certain are we, that bed is bed, however bedly. (We 
have a regard for this bit of parody on the old saying, because we 
made Charles Lamb laugh one night with it, when we were coming 
away with him out of a friend's house.) Bed is the home of 
home ; the innermost part of the content. It is sweet within 
sweet ; a nut in the nut ; within the snuggest nest, a snugger 
nest ; my retreat from the publicity of my privacy ; my room 
within my room, walled (if I please) with curtains ; a box, a 
separation, a snug corner, such as children love when they play 
at " house ;" the place where I draw a direct line between me 
and my cares ; where I enter upon a new existence, free, yet well 
invested ; reposing, but full of power ; where the act of lying 
down, and pulling the clothes over one's head, seems to exclude 
matters that have to do with us when dressed and on our legs ; 
where, though in repose, one is never more conscious of one's 

* In the Indicator. 



63 



BEDS AND LEDttOOMS. 



activity, divested of those hampering weeds ; where a leg is not a 
lump of hoot and stocking, hut a real leg, clear, natural, fleshy, 
delighting to thrust itself hither and thither ; and lo ! so recreat- 
ing itself, it conies in contact with another ; to wit, one's own. 
One should hardly guess as much, did it remain eternally divorced 
from its companion, — alienated and altered into leather and 
prunella. Of more legs we speak not. The bed we are at this 
moment presenting to our imagination, is a bachelor's ; for we 
must be cautious how we touch upon others. A married man 
may, to be sure, condescend, if he pleases, for the trifle's sake, 
to taste of the poor bachelor's satisfaction. He has only to go 
to bed an hour before his wife. Or the lady may do as much 
vice versa. And herein we can fancy one gratification, even of 
the bachelor or spinster order, beyond what a bachelor or spinster 
can often be presumed to realize ; which is, the pleasure of being 
in bed at your ease, united with the highest kind of advantage 
over the person that is up. Let us not be misunderstood. The 
sense of this advantage is not of the malignant kind. You do 
not enjoy yourself because others are in misery ; but, because 
your pleasure at the moment being very much in your bed, and it 
not being the other's pleasure to come to bed so soon (which you 
rather wonder at), you are at liberty to make what conclusions 
you please as to the superior nature of your condition. And 
there is this consideration besides ; namely, that you being in 
bed, and others up, all cares and attentions naturally fall to the 
portions of those individuals ; so that you are at once the master 
of your own repose and of their activity. A bachelor, however, 
may enjoy a good deal of this. He may have kindred in the 
house, or servants, or the man and woman that keep the lodging ; 
and from his reflections on all or either of these persons, he may 
derive no little satisfaction. It is a lordly thing to consider, that 
others are sitting up, and nobly doing some duty or other, with 
sleepy eyes, while ourselves are exquisitely shutting ours ; they 
being also ready to answer one's bell, bring us our white wine 
whey, or lamp, or what not, or even to go out in spite of the rain 
for some fruit, should we fancy it, or for a doctor in case we 
should be ill, or to answer some question for the mere pleasure of 
answering it. 

" Who's there ? " 

"Me, sir ; Mrs. Jones." 

" Oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Jones ; I merely rang to know 
if you were up." 



BEDS AND BEDROOMS. 69 

" Dear me, yes, sir, and likely to be this hour." 

(Aside and nappy) — " Poor soul ! " 

"It's Mr. Jones's club-night, sir." 

(" Poor woman ! Capital pillow this ! ") 

" And it's a full hour's walk from the Jolly Gardeners'." 

(" Poor Jones ! Very easy mattress.") Aloud — " Bless me, 
that's a bad business ; and it rains, doesn't it, Mrs. Jones ? " 

" A vile rain, sir, with an east wind." 

" (Poor Jones ! Delicious curtains these !) Couldn't the 
servant sit up, and let Mr. Jones in ? " 

" Lord, sir, we're both of us sitting up ; for I'm frighted out 
of my wits, sitting alone ; and Mr. Jones wouldn't be pleased if 
I didn't see him in myself." 

" (Poor woman !) Good-night, Mrs. Jones ; pray don't stand 
any longer at that cold door." 

" Do you want anything, sir ? " 

" Nothing, I thank you. I am very comfortable. What 
o'clock is it ? " 

" Just going one, sir." 

(" Poor creature ! — Poor Susan ! — Poor Jones ! ") Whew goes 
the wind ; patter go the windows ; ramble goes a coach ; to sleep 
go I. 

This is pretty; — but a wife, instead of the woman of the 
house, — a wife up, and going about like one's guardian-angel; 
we also loving her well, and having entreated her not to sit up, 
only she is forced to do so for this half hour, — either we know 
nothing of bliss itself, or the variety — merely as a variety — the 
having a whole bed for half an hour, merely as a change from that 
other superhuman elysian state — the seeing even a little pain 
borne so beautifully by the " partner of one's existence," whom 
of course we love the better for it, and cannot but rejoice in 
seeing gifted with such an opportunity of showing herself to 
advantage — all this, if we mistake not (owing to our present 
bachelor hallucination), must be a sublimation of satisfaction 
unknown to sojourners at large, who are but too often accused, 
with justice, of having more room than they know what to do 
with. 

A bed, to be perfectly comfortable, should be warm, clean, 
well made, and of a reasonable softness. People differ as to the 
amount of the softness. The general opinion seems to be in 
favour of feather-beds. To ourselves (if the fact must be publicly 
torn out of us by a candour trying to the sense of our nothing- 



70 BEDS AND BEDROOMS. 

ness) a feather-bed is a Slough of Despond. When we are in 
the depths of it, we long to be on the heights. When we get on 
the heights, down they go with us, and turn into depths. The 
feathers hamper us, obstruct, irritate, suffocate. We lose the 
sense of repose and independence, and feel ourselves in the hands 
of a soft lubberly giant. The pleasure of being " tucked up," 
we can better understand ; but it likes us not. What we require 
is, that the limbs should be as free as possible from obstruction. 
We desire to go counter to all that we endure when up and about. 
We must have nothing constrained about us ; — must be able to 
thrust arms and legs whithersoever we please. That the bed 
should be well and delicately tucked up, pleaseth us ; but only 
that we may have the greater satisfaction in disengaging the 
clothes on each side with a turn of the foot, and so giving freedom 
to our borders. 

" Upon my resting body, 
Lie lightly, gentle clothes?' 

Warmth, cleanliness, and ease being secured, it is of minor 
importance what sort of bed we lie in, whether it has curtains, or 
a canopy, or even legs. We can lie on the floor for that matter, 
provided the palliasse be of decent thickness. The floor itself 
then becomes a part of the great field of rest in which we expa- 
tiate. There is nothing to bound our right of incumbency ; we 
can gather the clothes about us, and roll on the floor if we please. 
Much greater philosophy does it take, on the other hand, to make 
us go up half a dozen steps to our bed, — to climb up to such 
lofty absurdities as are shown in old houses for the beds of James's 
and Charles's time ; thrones rather, and canopies for Prester 
John ; — edifices of beds, where we make a show of the privatest 
and humblest of our pleasures ; contrivances for the magnificent 
breaking of our necks ; or, if we are not to die that way, three - 
piled hyperboles of beds to engulf us, like a slough on the top of 
a mountain. Fine curtains disgust us by the same uneasy con- 
tradiction. We do not mean handsome ones of a reasonable kind ; 
but velvet, and such like cumbrous clouds, lording it over the 
sweet idea of rest, and forcing us to think of the most out-of-door 
pretensions. And we hate gilding, and coronets (not having any), 
and imperial eagles, and jliius-dc-lis, and all other conspiracies 
to put out the natural man in us, and deprive the poor great 
human being of the sweet privilege of being on a level with his 
reposing fellow- creatures. We are not sure that we could patronize 



BEDS AND BEDROOMS. 71 

Cupids, gilt torches, doves and garlands, &c. Flowery curtains 
we like ; but the Cupids and gilt torches are particular. We are 
not the fonder of them for being the taste in France. Curtains, 
paperings, plates and dishes, everything in that country, babbles, 
not of green fields, as with us, which is pretty, but of gallantry 
and la belle passion. The French (when they are not afraid of 
being thought afraid) are a good-natured people ; and they are 
much wiser in this good-nature than if they took to " heavy wet," 
and to being sulky. But in these amatory matters they seem to 
us never to make out the proper case. There is something ever 
too cold, or too meretricious, probably both ; for these extremes 
are too apt to meet. Cupids and torches might be well enough, 
provided we could be secure that none but eyes of good taste 
would see them ; but how are they or we to look, when every idle 
servant, or the glazier, or the landlord, or the man that comes to 
look at the house when it is to be let, is to gape about him, and 
make an impertinence of our loves and graces ? 

But we forget our solitary condition. — We should almost 
equally dislike the most gorgeous and the most sorry bedroom, 
did not the former stand the greater chance of cleanliness. The 
Duke of Buckingham, " gallant and gay," in one of the state 
beds of Cliefden's " proud alcove," or reckless and drunk in " the 
worst inn's worst room," behind his 

" Tape-tied curtains never meant to draw," 

is, to our mind, in no such difference of .condition as the poet 
makes him out. And his company were much like one another 
in both cases. Nay, that is not true either ; for it would have 
been difficult to pick up such an abomination from a village ale- 
house as the Countess of Shrewsbury, — a woman, ugly all over 
with a hard heart. Commend us (for a climate like ours) to a 
bedchamber of the middle order, such as it was set out about a 
hundred years back, and may still be seen in the houses of some 
old families ; the room of moderate size ; the four-post bedstead 
neatly and plentifully, but not richly, draperied; the chairs 
draperied also, down to the ground ; a drapery over the toilet ; 
the carpet, a good old Turkey or Brussels, not covering the floor, 
and easily to be taken up and shaken ; the wardrobe and drawers 
of old shining oak, walnut, or mahogany ; a few cabinet pictures, 
as exquisite as you please ; the windows with seats, and looking 
upon some green place ; two or three small shelves of books ; 



72 BSDS AND BEDROOMS. 

and the drawers, when they are opened, redolent of lavender and 
clean linen. We dislike the cut-and-dry look of modern fashions ; 
the cane chairs, formal-patterned carpets, and flimsy rooms. 
Modern times (or till very lately they were so) are all for light- 
ness, and cheap sufficiency, and what is considered a Grecian 
elegance. They realize only an insipid or gaudy anatomy of 
things, a cold pretension, and houses that will tumble upon the 
heads of our grandchildren. But these matters, like others, are 
gradually improving. If our bedroom is to be perfect, it should 
face the east, to rouse us pleasantly with the morning sun ; and 
in case we should be tempted to lie too long in so sweet a nest, 
there should be a happy family of birds at the windows, to salute 
our rise with songs. 

It is a good thing, however, to reflect, that custom is half the 
secret of content. The reason why we like a hard bed is, that we 
were brought up at a public school, without any luxuries ; and, to 
this day, we like just such a sort of bed as we had there. We 
could find a satisfaction in having the identical kind of rug over 
our sheets ; and sheets, teo, of no greater fineness. And the 
same reason makes us prefer a coarse towel to a fine one, and a 
gown, of some sort, to a coat ; with a pocket in the same place as 
the one in which we used to put our marbles and tops, and our 
pocket-editions of Gray and Collins. We have since slept in 
houses of all sorts — in rich houses and in poor, in cottages, in 
taverns and inns and public-houses, in palaces (what at least the 
Italians call such), and on board ship; yea, in bivouacs — -just 
enough to taste the extremest hardness of the bed military ; and 
for the only contrivance utterly to vitiate our night's rest, com- 
mend us to the bed of down. That, and the wooden bed of the 
guard-house, disputed the palm. Habit does the same with kings 
and popes. Frederick the Second preferred lying in a little tent- 
bed, such as Voltaire found him in at their first interview, shiver- 
ing with an ague ; and we learn from Horace Walpole's Letters, 
that the good Pope Benedict the Fourteenth, lay upon one no 
better (the palliasse, most probably, of his convent) by the side of 
the gorgeous canopy prepared for his rank. In truth, luxuriate 
as we may in this our at-diiferent- times- written article (wherein 
the indulgences and speculations, though true at the moment, are 
of many years' chance-preservation on paper, and therefore may 
crave excuse if they look a little ultra nice and fanciful, beyond 
the want of experience), we should be heartily ashamed of our- 
selves at our present time of life, if we could not sleep happily 



BEDS AND BEBBOOMS. 73 

in any bed (down and mud always excepted), provided only it had 
enough clothes to keep us warm, and were as clean and decent as 
honest poverty could make it. We talk of fine chambers, and 
luxurious contrasts of sitters-up ; but our secret passion is for a 
homely room in a cottage, with perfect quiet, a book or two, and 
a sprig of rosemary in the window ; not the book or two for the 
purpose of reading in bed, — (having once received a startling 
lesson that way, and not choosing to burn down the village,) — but 
in order that we may see them in the window the first thing in 
the morning, together with the trees of which they discourse. 
Add to this, a watch- dog at a distance, and a moaning wind, no 
matter how " melancholy," provided it does not blow a tempest 
(for though nature does nothing but for good, the particular suffer- 
ing sometimes presses upon the imagination), and we drop to 
sleep in a transport of comfort. Compare such a bed as this with 
one that we have seen during a storm of fifty- six hours' duration 
at sea, the occupant (the mate of the vessel) with his hands wet, 
black, blistered, and smarting w r ith the cold, and the very bed (a 
hole in a corner) as wet as his hands ! - And the common sailors 
had worse ! And yet the worst of all, shut out from wet and cold 
as they were, but not having work like the seamen to occupy 
the mind, were the cribs of a parcel of children tossing about in 
all this tempest, and the bed of their parents on the cabin floor. — 
With these recollections (as the whole vessel got safe), we some- 
times think we could find it in our hearts to relish even a feather- 
bed. 

A very large bedroom in an old country-house is not pleasant, 
where the candle shows you the darkness at the other end of it, 
and you begin to think it possible for houses to be haunted. And 
as little comfortable is the bed with a great dusty canopy, such as 
they say the Highland laird mistook for the bed itself, and 
mounted at top of, while he put his servant into the sheets, 
thinking that the loftier stratum was the place of grandeur. 
Sometimes these canopies are domed, and adorned with plumes, 
which gives them a funereal look ; and a nervous gentleman, w 7 ho, 
while getting into bed, is hardly sure that a hand will not thrust 
itself out beneath the vallance and catch him by the ankle, does 
not feel quite so bold in it as the French general, who, when 
threatened by some sheeted ghosts, told them to make the best of 
their way off, or he would give them a sound thrashing. On the 
other hand, unless warranted by necessity and good-humour, 
which can reconcile anything, it is very disagreeable to see sofa- 



74 BEDS AND BEDROOMS. 

bedsteads and press-bedsteads in "stivcd-up" little rooms, half 
sitting-room and half chamber. They look as if they never ; 
could be aired. For a similar reason, an Englishman cannot like | 
the French beds that shut up into alcoves in the wall. We do 
not object to a custom merely because it is foreign ; nor is it | 
unreasonable, or indeed otherwise than agreeable, that a bedroom 
of good dimensions should include a partial bit of a sitting-room 
or boudoir; but in that case, and indeed in all cases, it should be 
kept scrupulously neat and clean. Order in a house first mani- 
fests itself in the room wiiich the housewife inhabits ; and every 
sentiment of the heart, as well as of the external graces, demands 
that a very reverence and religion of neatness should be there 
exhibited ; not formality — not a want of snugness, — but all with 
evidences that the esteem of a life is preferred to the slatternliness 
of the moment, and that two hearts are always reigning together 
in that apartment, though one person alone should be visible. 

It is very proper that bedrooms, which can afford it, should 
be adorned with pictures, with flowers by daytime (they are not 
wholesome at night), and, if possible, with sculpture. We are 
among those who believe, with the old romance of Heliodorus, 
that, under circumstances which affect the earliest periods of 
existence, familiar objects are not without their influence upon 
the imagination. Besides, it is wholesome to live in the kindly 
and tranquil atmosphere of the arts ; and few, even of the right- 
minded, turn to half the account they might do the innumerable 
beauties which Heaven has lavished upon the world, both in art 
and nature. Better hang a wild rose over the toilet, than nothing. 
The eye that looks in the glass will see there something besides 
itself; and it will acquire something of a religious right to respect 
itself, in thinking by how many objects in the creation the bloom 
of beauty is shared. 

The most sordidly ridiculous anecdote we remember of a bed- 
chamber, is one in the life of Elwes, the rich miser, who, asking 
a visitor one morning how he had rested, and being told that he 
could not escape from the rain which came through the roof of 
the apartment, till he had found out one particular corner in 
which to stow the truckle-bed, said, laughingly, and without any 
sense of shame, " Ah ! what ! you found it out, did you ? Ah ! 
that's a nice corner, isn't it?" This, however, is surpassed in 
dramatic effect, by the story of two ministers of state, in the last 
century, who were seen one day, by a sudden visitor, furiously 
discussing some great question out of two separate beds in one 



BEDS AND BEDROOMS. 75 

room, by daytime, their arms and bodies thrust forward towards 
each other out of the clothes, and the gesticulation going on 
accordingly. If our memory does not deceive us, one of them 
was Lord Chatham. He had the gout, and his colleague coming 
in to see him, and the weather being very cold, and no fire in the 
room, the noble earl had persuaded his visitor to get into the 
other bed. The most ghastly bedchamber story, in real life 
(next to some actually mortal ones), is that of a lady who dreamt 
that her servant-maid was coming into the room to murder her. 
She rose in the bed with the horror of the dream in her face ; 
and sitting up thus appalled, encountered, in the opening door, 
the sight of the no less horrified face of the maid- servant, coming 
in with a light to do what her mistress apprehended. 

To give this article the termination fittest for it, such as 
leaves the reader with the most comprehensive sense upon him of 
profound rest, and of whatsoever conduces to lull and secure it, 
we shall conclude with a divine passage of Spenser, in which he 
combines, with the most poetical fiction, the most familiar feeling 
of truth. Morpheus, the god of sleep, has an impossible bed 
somewhere, on the borders of the sea, — on the shore of "'the 
world of waters wide and deep," by which its curtains are washed. 
Observe how this fictitious bed is made real by every collateral 
circumstance : — 

" And more to lulle him in his slumber soft, 
A trickling streame, from high rock tumbling downe, 
And ever-drizzling raine upon the loft, 
Mixed with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne 
Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne. 
No other noise, nor people's troublous cries, " . - 

As still are wont V annoy the walled towne, 
Might there be heard ; — but carelesse quiet lyes, 
Wrapt in eternal silence — farre from enemyes." 

— Fairy Queen, book i. canto i. stanza 41. 



( 70 ) 



THE WORLD OF BOOKS. 

DIFFICULTY OF PROVING THAT A MAN IS NOT ACTUALLY IN A DISTANT 
PLACE, BY DINT OF BEING THERE IN IMAGINATION — VISIT OF THAT 

KIND TO SCOTLAND SUGGESTION OF A BOOK-GEOGRAPHY ; OF 

MAPS, IN WHICH NONE BUT POETICAL OR OTHERWISE INTELLEC- 
TUALLY-ASSOCIATED PLACES ARE SET DOWN — SCOTTISH, ENGLISH, 
FRENCH, AND ITALIAN ITEMS FOR SUCH MAPS— LOCAL LITERIZA- 
TIONS OF ROUSSEAU AND WORDSWORTH OBJECTED TO — ACTUAL 
ENRICHMENT OF THE COMMONEST PLACES BY INTELLECTUAL ASSO- 
CIATIONS. 

To the Editor of Taitfs Magazine. 
Sir,— 

To write in your Magazine makes me feel as if I, at 
length, had the pleasure of being personally in Scotland, a grati- 
fication which I have not yet enjoyed in any other way. I dive 
into my channel of communication, like another Alpheus, and 
reappear in the shop of Mr. Tait ; not pursuing, I trust, anything 
fugitive, but behaving very unlike a river- god, and helping to 
bring forth an Edinburgh periodical. 

Nor will you, sir, who enter so much into the interests of 
your fellow-creatures, and know so well of what their faculties are 
capable, look upon this kind of presence as a thing so purely 
unreal as it might be supposed. Our strongest proofs of the 
existence of anything amounts but to a proportionate belief to 
that effect ; and it would puzzle a wise man, though not a fool, 
to prove to himself that I was not, in some spiritual measure, in 
any place where I chose to pitch my imagination. I notice this 
metaphysical subtlety merely, in the first place, to baulk your 
friend the Pechler, should he think it a settled thing that a man 
cannot be in two places at once (which would be a very green 
assumption of his) ; and secondly, the better to impress a con- 
viction which I have, — that I know Scotland very well, and have 
been there many times. 

Whether we go to another country on these occasions, in the 
manner of a thing spiritual, our souls being pitched out of our- 
selves like rockets or meteors ; or whether the country comes to 






THE WORLD OF BOOKS. 77 

us, and our large souls are inhabited by it for the time being, 
upon the principle of the greater including the less, — the mind of 
man being a far more capacious thing than any set of square 
miles, — I shall leave the curious to determine ; but if I am not 
intimate with the very best parts of Scotland, and have not seen 
them a thousand times, then do I know nothing of Burns, or 
Allan Ramsay, or Walter Scott, or Smollett, or Ossian, or James 
the First or Fifth, or snoods, or cockernonies, or gloamin', or 
birks and burnies, or plaids, bonnets, and phillabegs, or John 
Knox, or Queen Mary, or the Canongate, or the Calton Hill, or 
Hume and Robertson, or Tweedside, or a haggis, or cakes, or 
heather, or reels and strathspeys, or Glengarry, or all the clans, 
or Auld Robin Gray, or a mist, or rappee, or second sight, or the 
kirk, or the cutty-stool, or golf and hurling, or the Border, or 
Bruce and Wallace, or bagpipes, or bonnie lasses. 

" A lover's plaid and a bed of heath," says the right poetical 
Allan Cunningham, " are favourite topics with the northern muse. 
When the heather is in bloom, it is worthy of becoming the couch 
of beauty. A sea of brown blossom, undulating as far as the eye 
can reach, and swarming with ivild bees, is a fine sight" Sir, I 
have seen it a million times, though I never set eyes -on it. 

Who that has ever read it, is not put into visual possession of 
the following scene in the Gentle Shepherd ? — 

" A flowrie howm between twa verdant braes, 
Where lasses used to wash and spread their claes ; 
A trotting burnie, wimpling through the ground, 
Its channel pebbles shining smooth and round ; 
Here view twa barefoot beauties, clean and clear." 

Or this ?— 

" The open field. — A cottage in a glen ; 
An auld wife spinning at the sunny en\" 

Or this other, a perfect domestic picture ? — 

" While Peggy laces up her bosom fair, 
Wi' a blue snood Jenny binds up her hair ; 
Glaud by a morning ingle takes a beek, 
The rising sun shines motty through the reek : 
A pipe his mouth, the lasses please his een, 
And now and then a joke maun intervene." 

The globe we inhabit is divisible into two worlds ; one hardly 
less tangible, and far more known than the other, — the common 



78 THE WORLD OF BOOKS. 

geographical world, and the world of books ; and the latter may 
be as geographically set forth. A man of letters, conversant with 
poetry and romance, might draw out a very curious map, in which 
this world of books should be delineated and filled up, to the 
delight of all genuine readers, as truly as that in Guthrie or 
Pinkerton. To give a specimen, and begin with Scotland, — 
Scotland would not be the mere territory it is, with a scale of so 
many miles to a degree, and such and such a population. Who 
(except a patriot or cosmopolite) cares for the miles or the men, 
or knows that they exist, in any degree of consciousness with 
which he cares for the never-dying population of books ? How 
many generations of men have passed away, and will pass, in 
Ayrshire or Dumfries, and not all the myriads be as interesting 
to us as a single Burns ? What have we known of them, or shall 
ever know, whether lairds, lords, or ladies, in comparison with 
the inspired ploughman ? But we know of the bards and the 
lasses, and the places which he has recorded in song ; we know 
the scene of " Tarn o' Shanter's " exploit ; we know the pastoral 
landscapes above quoted, and the scenes immortalized in Walter 
Scott and the old ballads ; and, therefore, the book-map of Scot- 
land would present us with the most prominent of these. We 
should have the border, with its banditti, towns, and woods ; 
Tweedside, Melrose, and Koslin, " Edina," otherwise called 
Edinburgh and Auld Keekie, or the town of Hume, Robertson, 
and others ; Woodhouselee, and other classical and haunted 
places ; the bower built by the fair hands of " Bessie Bell" and 
" Mary Gray;" the farmhouses of Burns's friends; the scenes 
of his loves and sorrows ; the land of " Old Mortality," of the 
" Gentle Shepherd" and of " Ossian." The Highlands, and the 
great blue billowy domains of heather, would be distinctly marked 
out, in their most poetical regions ; and we should have the 
tracks of Ben Jonson to Hawthornden, of "Rob Roy" to his 
hiding-places, and of " Jeanie Deans" towards England. Abbots- 
ford, be sure, would not be left out; nor the house of the " Anti- 
quary," — almost as real a man as his author. Nor is this all : 
for we should have older Scotland, the Scotland of James the 
First, and of " Peeblis at the Play," and Gawin Douglas, and 
Bruce, and Wallace ; we should have older Scotland still, the 
Scotland of Ariosto, with his tale of " Ginevra," and the new 
"Andromeda," delivered from the sea-monster at the Isle of 
Ebuda (the Hebrides) ; and there would be the residence of the 
famous " Launcelot of the Lake," at Berwick, called the Joyeuse 



THE WORLD OF BOOKS, 79 

Garde, and other ancient sites of chivalry and romance ; nor 
should the nightingale be left out in "Ginevra's" bower, for 
Ariosto has put it there, and there, accordingly, it is and has 
been heard, let ornithology say what it will; for what orni- 
thologist knows so much of the nightingale as a poet ? We 
would have an inscription put on the spot — " Here the nightingale 
sings, contrary to what has been affirmed by "White and others." 

This is the Scotland of books, and a beautiful place it is. I 
will venture to affirm, sir, even to yourself, that it is a more 
beautiful place than the other Scotland, always excepting to an 
exile or a lever ; for the former is piqued to prefer what he must 
not touch ; and, to the latter, no spot is so charming as the 
ugliest place that contains his beauty. Not that Scotland has not 
many places literally as well as poetically beautiful : I know that 
well enough. But you see that young man there, turning down 
the corner of the dullest spot in Edinburgh, with a dead wall over 
against it, and delight in his eyes ? He sees No. 4, the house 
where the girl lives he is in love with. Now what that place 
is to him, all places are, in their proportion, to the lover of 
j books, for he has beheld them by the light of imagination and 
sympathy. 

China, sir, is a very unknown place to us, — in one sense of 
the word unknown ; but who is not intimate with it as the land 
of tea, and china, and ko-tous, and pagodas, and mandarins, and 
Confucius, and conical caps, and people with little names, little 
eyes, and little feet, who sit in little bowers, drinking little cups 
of tea, and writing little odes ? The Jesuits, and the teacups, 
and the novel of Ju-Kiao-Li, have made us well acquainted with 
it; better, a great deal, than millions of its inhabitants are 
acquainted — fellows who think it in the middle of the world, and 
know nothing of themselves. With one China they are totally 
unacquainted, to wit, the great China of the poet and old 
travellers, Cathay, " seat of Cathian Can," the country of which 
Ariosto's " Angelica " was princess-royal ; yes, she was a Chinese, 
"the fairest of her sex, Angelica." It shows that the ladies in 
that country must have greatly degenerated, for it is impossible 
to conceive that Ariosto, and Orlando, and Rinaldo, and King 
Sacripant, who was a Circassian, could have been in love with 
her for having eyes and feet like a pig. I will deviate here into 
a critical remark, which is, that the Italian poets seem to have 
considered people the handsomer the farther you went north. 
The old traveller, it is true, found a good deal of the beauty that 



80 THE WORLD OF BOOKS. 

depends on red and white, in Tartary and other western regions ; 
and a fine complexion is highly esteemed in the swarthy south. 
But " Astolfo," the Englishman, is celebrated for his beauty by 
the Italian poets; the unrivalled " Angelica " was a Chinese; 
and the handsomest of Ariosto's heroes, " Zerbino," of whom he 
writes the famous passage, a that nature made him, and then 
broke the mould," was a Scotchman. The poet had probably 
seen some very handsome Scotchman in Komagna. With this 
piece of " bribery and corruption" to your national readers, I 
return to my subject. 

Book-England, on the map, would shine as the Albion of the 
old Giants; as the " Logres " of the Knights of the Round 
Table ; as the scene of Amadis of Gaul, with its island of 
Windsor ; as the abode of fairies, of the Druids, of the divine 
Countess of Coventry, of Guy, Earl of Warwick, of "Alfred" 
(whose reality was a romance), of the Fair Rosamond, of the 
Arcades and Comics, of Chaucer and Spenser, of the poets of the 
Globe and the Mermaid, the wits of Twickenham and Hampton 
Court. Fleet Street would be Johnson's Fleet Street ; the 
Tower would belong to Julius Caesar ; and Blackfriars to Suckling, 
Vandyke, and the Dnnciad. Chronology and the mixture of 
truth and fiction, that is to say, of one sort of truth and another, 
would come to nothing in a work of this kind ; for, as it has 
been before observed, things are real in proportion as they are 
impressive. And who has not as " gross, open, and palpable " 
an idea of "Falstaff" in Eastcheap, as of "Captain Grose" 
himself, beating up his quarters ? A map of fictitious, literary, 
and historical London, would, of itself, constitute a great curiosity. 
So would one of Edinburgh, or of any other city in which there 
have been great men and romantic events, whether the latter 
were real or fictitious. Swift speaks of maps, in which they 

" Place elephants for want of towns." 

Here would be towns and elephants too, the popular and the 
prodigious. How much would not Swift do for Ireland, in this 
geography of wit and talent ! What a figure would not St. 
Patrick's Cathedral make ! The other day, mention was made of 
a " Dean of St. Patrick's" now living; as if there was, or ever 
could be, more than one Dean of St. Patrick's ! In the Irish 
maps we should have the Saint himself driving out all venomous 
creatures ; (what a pity that the most venomous retain a property 
as absentees !) and there would be the old Irish kings, and 



tfHE WOULD OF BOOKS. 8l 

O'Donoghue with his White Horse, and the lady of the " gold 
wand" who made the miraculous virgin pilgrimage, and all the 
other marvels of lakes and ladies, and the Round Towers still 
remaining to perplex the antiquary, and Goldsmith's "Deserted 
Village," and Goldsmith himself, and the birth-places of Steele 
and Sterne, and the brief hour of poor Lord Edward Fitzgerald, 
and Carolan with his harp, and the schools of the poor Latin 
boys under the hedges, and Castle Rackrent, and Edgewortk's- 
town, and the Giant's Causeway, and Ginleas and other classical 
poverties, and Spenser's castle on the river Mulla, with the wood- 
go els whom his pipe drew round him. Ireland is wild ground 
still ; and there are some that would fain keep it so, like a forest 
to hunt in. 

The French map would present us with the woods and 
warriors of old Gaul, and Lucan's witch ; with Charlemaine and 
his court at Tours ; with the siege of Paris by the Saracens, and 
half the wonders of Italian poetry ; with Angelica and Medoro ; 
with the Castles of Orlando and Rinaldo, and the traitor Gan ; 
with part of the great forest of Ardenne (Rosalind being in 
it) ; with the gentle territory of the Troubadours, and Navarre ; 
with " Love's Labour Lost," and " Yaucluse ; " with Petrarch and 
Laura, and the pastoral scenes of D'Urfe's romance, and the "Men- 
Wolves " of Brittany, and the " Fairy of Lusignan." Napoleon, 
also (for he too was a romance), should be drawn as a giant, 
meeting the allied forces in the neighbourhood of Paris. 

Italy would be covered with ancient and modern romance ; 
with Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Dante, Boccaccio, &c, with classical 
villas, and scenes Elysian and Infernal. There would be the 
region cf Saturn during his Age of Gold, and the old Tuscan 
cities, and Phaeton in the north, and the sirens and fairies at 
Naples, .and Polyphemus in Sicily, with the abodes of Boiardo 
and Ariosto, and Horace's Mount Soracte, and the Cross of 
St. Peter, and the city in the sea, and the golden scenes of 
Titian and Raphael, and other names that make us hear the 
music of their owners : Pythagoras also with his philosophy, and 
Petrarch with his lute. A circle of stars would tell us where 
Galileo lived ; and the palace of Doria w 7 ould look more than 
royal towards the sea. 

I dare not, in this hasty sketch, and with limited time before 
me, indulge myself in other luxuries of recollection, or do any- 
thing more than barely mention the names of Spain, Fontarabia, 
and Cervantes; of Greece; of Persia, and the Arabian Nights; 

6 



82 THE WORLD OF BOOKS. 

of Mount Caucasus, and Turkey, and the Gothic north ; of El 
Dorado and Columbus ; or the sea-snakes, floating islands, and 
other marvels of the ocean ; not forgetting the Atalantis of 
Plato, and the regions of Gulliver and Peter Wilkins. Neither 
can 1 have the pleasure of being suffocated with contemplating, 
at proper length, the burning deserts of Africa ; or of hearing 
the ghastly sounds of its old Satyrs and iEgipans in their woody 
hills at night-time, described by Pomponius Mela ; or of seeing 
the Stormy Spirit of the Cape, stationed there for ever by 
Camoens, and whose stature on the map would be like a mountain. 
You will be good enough to take this paper as nothing but a hint 
of what such a map might contain. 

One word, however, respecting a heresy in fictitious belief, 
which has been uttered by Rousseau, and repeated, I am sorry to 
say, by our excellent poet Wordsworth, the man of all men who 
ought not to reduce a matter of fact to what might be supposed 
to be its poverty. Rousseau, speaking of the banks of the ' 
Lignon, where the scene of the old French romance is laid, 
expresses his disappointment at finding there nothing like the 
beautiful things he fancied in his childhood ; and Mr. Wordsworth 
in his poem of Yarrow, Visit eel and Unvisited, utters a like regret, 
in speaking of the scene of the " bonny bride — the winsome 
marrow." I know there is such an opinion abroad, like many 
other errors ; but it does not become men of imagination to give 
in to it ; and I must protest against it, as a flat irreligion. I do 
not pretend to be as romantic in my conduct as the Genevese 
philosopher, or as poetical in my nature as the bard of Rydal 
Mount ; but I have, by nature, perhaps, greater animal spirits 
than either ; and a bit of health is a fine prism to see fancies by. 
It may be granted, for the sake of argument, that the book- 
Lignon and the book-Yarrow are still finer things than the Lignon 
and Yarrow geographical ; but to be actually on the spot, to look 
with one's own eyes upon the places in which our favourite heroes 
or heroines underwent the circumstances that made us love them 
— this may surely make up for an advantage on the side of the 
description in the book ; and, in addition to this, we have the 
pleasure of seeing how much has been done for the place by love 
and poetry. 1 have seen various places in Europe, which have 
been rendered interesting by great men and their works ; and I 
never found myself the worse for seeing them, but the better. I 
seem to have made friends with them in their own houses ; to 
have walked, and talked, and suffered, and enjoyed with them ; 



THE WORLD OF BOOKS. 83 

and if their books have made the places better, the books them- 
selves were there which made them so, and which grew out of them. 
The poet's hand was on the place, blessing it. I can no more 
separate this idea from the spot, than I can take away from it any 
other beauty. Even in London, I find the principle hold good in 
me, though I have lived there many years, and, of course, asso- 
ciated Jit with every commonplace the most unpoetical. The 
greater still includes the less : and I can no more pass through 
Westminster, without thinking of Milton ; or the Borough, with- 
out thinking of Chaucer and Shakspeare : or Gray's Inn, without 
calling Bacon to mind ; or Bloomsbury Square, without Steele 
and Akenside — than I can prefer brick and mortar to wit and 
poetry, or not see a beauty upon it beyond architecture, in the 
splendour of the recollection. I once had duties to perform, 
which kept me out late at night, and severely taxed my health 
and spirits. My path lay through a neighbourhood in which 
Dry den lived ; and though nothing could be more commonplace, 
and I used to be tired to the heart and soul of me, I never 
hesitated to go a little out of the way, purely that I might pass 
through Gerard Street, and so give myself the shadow of a 
pleasant thought. 

I am, sir, your cordial well-wisher, 

A Lover of Books. 



( 84 ) 



JACK ABBOTT'S BREAKFAST. 

ANIMAL SPIRITS — A DOMINIE SAMPSON DRAWN FROM THE LIFE — MANY 
THINGS FALL OUT BETWEEN THE (BREAKFAST) CUP AND THE LIP — A 
MAGISTRATE DRAWN FROM THE LIFE — IS BREAKFAST EVER TO BE 
TAKEN, OR IS IT NOT ? — THE QUESTION ANSWERED. 

" What a breakfast I shall eat! " thought Jack Abbott, as he 
turned into Middle Temple Lane, towards the chambers of his 
old friend and tutor Goodall. " How I shall swill the tea ! how 
cram clown the rolls (especially the inside bits) ! how apologize 
for ' one cup more ! ' — But Goodall is an excellent old fellow — he 
won't mind. To be sure I'm rather late. The rolls, I'm afraid, 
will be cold, or double baked ; but anything will be delicious. If 
I met a baker, I could eat his basket." 

Jack Abbott was a good-hearted, careless fellow, who had 
walked that morning from Hendon, to breakfast with his old 
friend by appointment, and afterwards consult his late father's 
lawyer. He was the son of a clergyman more dignified by rank 
than by solemnity of manners, but an excellent person too, who 
had some rern,orse in leaving a family of sons with little provision, 
but comforted himself with reflecting that he had gifted them 
with good constitutions and cheerful natures, and that they would 
" find their legs somehow," as indeed they all did ; for very good 
legs they were, whether to dance away care with, or make love 
with, or walk seven miles to breakfast with, as Jack had done 
that morning ; and so they all got on accordingly, and clubbed 
up a comfortable maintenance for the prebendary's widow, who, 
sanguine and loving as her husband, almost wept out of a fondness 
of delight, whenever she thought either of their legs or their 
affection. As to Jack himself, he was the youngest, and at 
present the least successful, of the brotherhood, having just 
entered upon a small tutorship in no very rich family ; but his 
spirits were the greatest in the family (which is saying much), 
and if he was destined never to prosper so much as any of them 
in the ordinary sense, he had a relish of every little pleasure that 
presented itself, and a genius for neutralizing the disagreeable, 
which at least equalized his fate with theirs. 



jack Abbott's breakfast. 85 

Well, Jack Abbott has arrived at the door of his friend's room. 
He knocks ; and it is opened by Goodall himself, a thin grizzled 
personage, in an old great-coat instead of a gown, with lanthorn- 
jaws, shaggy eyebrows, and a most bland and benevolent expres- 
sion of countenance. Like many who inhabit Inns of Court, he 
was not a lawyer. He had been a tutor all his life ; and as he 
led only a book- existence, he retained the great blessing of it — a 
belief in the best things which he believed when young. The 
natural sweetness of his disposition had even gifted him with a 
politeness of manners which many a better-bred man might have 
envied ; and though he was a scholar more literal than profound, 
and, in truth, had not much sounded the depths of anything but 
his tea-caddy, yet an irrepressible respect for him accompanied 
the smiling of his friends ; and mere worldly men made no grosser 
mistake, than in supposing they had a right to scorn him with 
their uneasy satisfactions and misbelieving success. In a word, 
he was a sort of better-bred Dominie Sampson — a Goldsmith, 
with the genius taken out of him, but the goodness left — an angel 
of the dusty heaven of bookstalls and the British Museum. 

Unfortunately for the hero of our story, this angel of sixty- 
five, unshaved, and with stockings down at heel, had a memory 
which could not recollect what had been told him six hours before, 
much less six days. Accordingly, he had finished his breakfast, 
and given his cat the remaining drop of milk long before his (in 
every sense of the word) late pupil presented himself within his 
threshold. Furthermore, besides being a lanthorn -jawed cherub, 
he was very short-sighted, and his ears were none of the quickest ; 
so in answer to Jack's "Well — eh — how d'ye do, my dear sir ? 
— I'm afraid I'm very late," he stood holding the door open with 
one hand, shading his winking eyes with the other, in order to 
concentrate their powers of investigation, and in the blandest 
tones of unawareness saying — 

" Ah, dear me — I'm very — I beg pardon — I really — pray who 
is it I have the pleasure of speaking to ? " 

" What ! don't you recollect me, my dear sir ? Jack Abbott. 
I met you, you know, and was to come and " 

" Oh ! Mr. Abbott, is it ? What— ah— Mr. James Abbott, 
no doubt — or Robert. My dear Mr. Abbott, to think I should 
not see you ! " 

" Yes, my dear sir ; and you don't see now that it is Jack, 
and not James ? Jack, your last pupil, who plagued you so in 
the Terence." 



86 ^ jack Abbott's beeakfast. 

" Not at all, sir, not at all ; no Abbott ever plagued me ; — 
far too good and kind people, sir. Come in, pray ; come in and 
sit down, and let's hear all about the good lady your mother, and 
how you all get on, Mr. James." 

" Jack, my dear sir, Jack ; but it doesn't signify. An 
Abbot is an Abbot, you know ; that is, if he is but fat enough." 

Goodall {very gravely, not seeing the joke). " Surely you are 
quite fat enough, my dear sir, and in excellent health. And how 
is the good lady your mother ? " 

" Capitally well, sir (looking at the breakfast-table). I'm 
quite rejoiced to see that the breakfast -cloth is not removed ; for 
I'm horribly late, and fear I must have put you out ; but don't 
you take any trouble, my good sir. The kettle, I see, is still 
singing on the hob. I'll cut myself a piece of bread and butter 
immediately ; and you'll let me scramble beside you as I used to 
do, and look at a book, and talk with my mouth full." 

Goodall. " Ay, ay; what! you have come to breakfast, 
have you, my kind boy ? that is very good of you, very good 
indeed. Let me see — let me see — my laundress has never been 
here this morning, but you won't mind my serving you myself — I 
have everything at hand." 

Abbott (ajKirt, and sighing with a smile). " He has forgotten 
all about the invitation ! Thank ye, my dear sir, thank ye — I 
would apologize, only I know you wouldn't like it ; and to say 
the truth, I'm very hungry — hungry as a hunter — I've come all 
the way from Hendon." 

" Bless me! have you, indeed? and from Wendover too? 
Why, that is a very long way, isn't it ? " 

" Hendon, sir, not Wendover — Hendon." 

"Oh, Endor — ah — dear me (smiling), I didn't know there 
was an Endor in England. I hope there is — he ! he ! — no witch 
there, Mr. Abbott ; unless she be some very charming young 
lady with a fortune." 

" Nay, sir, I think you can go nowhere in England, and not 
meet with charming young ladies." 

"Very true, sir, very true — England — what does the poet 
say? something about ' manly hearts to guard the fair.' — You 
have no sisters, I think, Mr. Abbott ? " 

" No ; but plenty of female cousins." 

" Ah ! very charming young ladies, I've no doubt, sir. Well, 
sir, there's your cup and saucer, and here's some fresh tea, 
and " 



jack Abbott's breakfast. ,^ 87 

" I beg pardon," interrupted Jack, who, in a fury of hunger 
and thirst, was pouring out what tea he could find in the pot, 
and anxiously looking for the bread; "I can do very well with 
this — at any rate to begin with." 

" Just so, sir," balmily returned Goodall. " Well, sir, but I 
am sorry to see — eh, I really fear — certainly the cat — eh — what 
are we to do for milk ? I'm afraid I must make you wait till I 
step out for some ; for this laundress, when once she " 

" Don't stir, I beg you," ejaculated our hero ; " don't think 
of it, my dear sir. I can do very well without milk — I can indeed 
— I often do without milk." 

This was said out of an intensity of a sense to the contrary ; 
but Jack was anxious to make the old gentleman easy. 

" Well," quoth Groodall, " I have met with such instances, to 
be sure ; and very lucky it is, Mr. — a — John — James I should 
say — that you do not care for milk ; though I ccrnfess, for my 
part, I cannot do without it. But, bless me ! heyday*! well, if 
the sugar-basin, dear me, is not empty. Bless my soul ! I'll go 
instantly — it is but as far as Fleet Street — and my hat, I think, 
must be under those pamphlets." 

" Don't think of such a thing, pray, dear sir," cried Jack, 
half leaping from his chair, and tenderly laying his hand on his 
arm. " You may think it odd; but sugar, I can assure you, 
is a thing I don't at all care for. Do you know, my dear 
Mr. Goodall, I have often had serious thoughts of leaving off 
sugar, owing to the slave-trade ? " 

" Why that, indeed " 

" Yes, sir ; and probably I should have done it, had not so 
many excellent men, yourself among them, thought fit to continue 
the practice, no doubt after the greatest reflection. However, 
what with these perhaps foolish doubts, and the indifference of 
my palate to sweets, sugar is a mere drug to me, sir — -a mere 
drug." 

" Well, but " 

" Nay, dear sir, you will distress me if you say another word 
upon the matter — you will indeed ; see how I drink." (And 
here Jack made as if he took a hasty gulp of his milkless and 
sugarless water.) " The bread, my dear sir — the bread is all I 
require ; just that piece which you were going to take up. You 
remember how I used to stuff bread, and fill the book I was 
reading with crumbs ? I dare say the old Euripides is bulging 
out with them now." 



88 jack Abbott's breakfast. 

" Well, sir — all — era — ah — well, indeed, you're very good, 
and, I'm sure, very temperate ; but, dear me — well, this laundress 
of mine — I must certainly get rid of her thieving — rheumatism, I 
should say; but butter! I vow I do not " 

11 Butter ! " interrupted our hero, in a tone of the greatest 
scorn. " Why, I haven't eaten butter I don't know when. Not a 
step, sir, not a step. And now let me tell you I must make haste, 
for I've got to lunch with my lawyer, and he'll expect me to eat 
something ; and in fact I'm so anxious, and feel so hurried, that 
now I have eaten a good piece of my hunk, I must be off, my 
good sir — I must, indeed." 

To say the truth, Jack's hunk was a good three days old, if 
an hour ; and so hard,* that even his hunger and fine teeth could 
not find it in the hearts of them to relish it with the cold slop ; 
so he had made up his mind to seek the nearest coffee-house as 
fast as possible, and there have the heartiest and most luxurious 
breakfast that could make amends for his disappointment. After 
reconciling the old gentleman, however, to his departure, he sat a 
little longer, out of decency and respect, listening, with a benevo- 
lence equal to his appetite, to the perusal of a long passage in 
Cowley, which Goodall had been reading when he arrived, and 
the recitation of which was prolonged by the inflictor with admiring 
repetitions, and bland luxuriations of comment. 

" What an excellent good fellow he is ! " thought Jack ; " and 
what a very unshaved face he has, and neglectful washer- 
woman ! ' ' 

At length he found it the more easy to get away, inasmuch as 
Goodall said he was himself in the habit of going out about that 
time to a coffee-house to look at the papers, before he went the 
round of his pupils ; but he had to shave first, and would not 
detain Mr. Abbott, if he must go. 

Being once more out of doors, our hero rushes back like a 
tiger into Fleet- street, and plunges into the first coffee-house in 
sight. 

"Waiter!" 

" Yessir" 

* People of regular, comfortable lives, breakfasts, and conveniences, 
must be cautious how they take pictures like these lor caricatures. The 
very letter of the adventure above described, with the exception of a few 
words, has actually happened. And so, with the same difference, has that 
of the sheep and Uackney-eoaeh, narrated in the Disasters of Carji/Kjton 
Blundell, 



jack Abbott's breakfast, 89 

" Breakfast immediately. Tea, black and green, and all 
that." 

" Yessir. Eggs and toast, sir ? " 
" By all means." 
" Yessir. Any ham, sir ? " 
" Just so, and instantly." 
" Yessir. Cold fowl, sir?" 
" Precisely ; and no delay." 
" Yessir. Anchovy perhaps, sir ? " 

" By all — eh ? — no, I don't care for anchovy — but pray bring 
what you like ; and above all, make haste, my good fellow — no 
delay — I'm as hungry as the devil." 

" Yessir — coming directly, sir. (< Good chap and great fool, 
said the waiter to himself.) Like the newspaper, sir ? " 

" Thankye. Now for heaven's sake " 

" Yessir — immediately, sir — everything ready, sir." 
" Everything ready!" thought Jack. " Cheering sound! 
Beautiful place a coffee-house ! Fine English place — everything 
so snug and at hand — so comfortable — so easy — have what you 
like, and without fuss. What a breakfast I shall eat ! And the 
paper too — hum, hum (reading) — Horrid Murder — Mysterious 
Affair — Express from Paris — Assassination — intense. Bless me ! 

what horrible things — how very comfortable. What toast I 

Waiter!" 

Waiter, from a distance — " Yessir — coming, sir." 
In a few minutes everything is served up — the toast hot and 
rich — eggs plump — ham huge, &c. 

" You've another slice of toast getting ready ? " said Jack. 
" Yessir:' 

" Let the third, if you please, be thicker ; and the fourth." 
" Glorious moment ! " inwardly ejaculated our hero. He had 
doubled the paper conveniently, so as to read the " Express from 
Paris" in perfect comfort; and before he poured out his tea, he 
was in the act of putting his hand to one of the inner pieces of 
toast, when — awful visitation ! — whom should he see passing the 
window, with the evident design of turning into the coffee-house, 
but his too -carelessly and swiftly shaved friend Goodall. He was 
coming, of course, to read the papers. Yes, such was his hor- 
rible inconvenient practice, as Jack had too lately heard him say ; 
and this, of all coffee-houses in the world, was the one he must 
needs go to. 

What was to be done ? Jack Abbott, who was not at all a 



90 jack Abbott's breakfast. 

man of manoeuvres, much less gifted with that sort of impudence 
which can risk hurting another's feelings, thought there was 
nothing left for him but to bolt ; and accordingly, after hiding 
his face with the newspaper till Goodall had taken up another, he 
did so as if a bailiff was after him, brushing past the waiter who 
had brought it him, and who had just seen another person out. 
The waiter, to his astonishment, sees him plunge into another 
coffee-house over the way ; then hastens back to see if anything 
be missing ; and rinding all safe, concludes he must have run 
over to speak to some friend, perhaps upon some business sud- 
denly called to mind, especially as he seemed " such a hasty 
gentleman." 

Meanwhile, Jack, twice exasperated with hunger, but con- 
gratulating himself that he had neither been seen by Goodall, nor 
tasted a breakfast unpaid for, has ordered precisely such another 
breakfast, and has got the same newspaper, and seated himself as 
nearly as possible in the very same sort of place. 

" Now" thought he, "I am beyond the reach of chance. No 
such ridiculous hazard as this can find me here. Goodall cannot 
read the papers in two coffee-houses. By Jove ! was there ever 
a man so hungry as I am ? What a breakfast I shall eat ! " 

Enter breakfast served up as before — toast hot and rich — 
eggs plump — ham huge, &c. Homer himself, who was equally 
fond of a repetition and a good meal, would have liked to re- 
describe it. " Glorious moment ! " Jack has got the middle bit 
of toast in his fingers, precisely as before, when happening to cast 
his eye at the door, he sees the waiter of the former coffee-house 
pop his head in, look him full in the face, and as suddenly with- 
draw it. Back goes the toast on the plate ; up springs poor 
Abbott to the door, and hardly taking time to observe that his 
visitant is not in sight, rushes forth for the second time, and 
makes out as fast as he can for a third coffee-house. 

" Am I never to breakfast ? " thought he. " Nay, breakfast I 
will. People can't go into three coffee-houses on purpose to go 
out again. But suppose the dog should have seen me! Not 
likely, or I should have seen him again. He may have gone and 
told the people ; but I've hardly got out of the second coffee- 
house before I've found a third. Bless this confounded Fleet 
Street. — Most convenient place for diving in and out coffee- 
houses ! Dr. Johnson's street — ' High tide of human existence ' 
— ready breakfasts. What a breakfast I will cat ! " 

Jack Abbott, after some delay, owing to the fulness of the 



jack Abbott's breakfast. 91 

room, is seated as before — the waiter has yessird to their mutual 
content — the toast is clone — Homeric repetition — eggs plump, 
ham huge, &c. 

" By Hercules, who was the greatest twist of antiquity, what 
a breakfast I will, shall, must, and have now certainly got to eat ! 
I could not have stood it any longer. Now, now, now, is the 
moment of moments." 

Jack Abbott has put his hand to the toast. 

Unluckily, there were three pair of eyes which had been 
observing him all the while from over the curtain of the landlord's 
little parlour ; to-wit, the waiter's of the first tavern, the waiter's 
of the second, and the landlord's of the third. The two waiters 
had got in time to the door of tavern the second, to watch his 
entrance into tavern the third ; and both communicating the 
singular fact to the landlord of the same, the latter resolved upon 
a certain mode of action, which was now to develop itself. 

" Well," said the first waiter, " I've seen strange chaps in 
my time in coffee-houses ; but this going about, ordering break- 
fasts which a man doesn't eat, beats everything ! and he hasn't 
taken a spoon or anything as I see. He doesn't seem to be 
looking about him, you see ; he reads the paper as quiet as an 
old gentleman." 

" Just for all the world as he did in our house," said the 
second waiter; " and he's very pleasant and easy-like in his ways." 

"Pleasant and easy!" cried the landlord, whose general 
scepticism was sharpened by gout and a late loss of spoons. 
" Yes, yes ; I've seen plenty of your pleasant and easy fellows — 
palavering rascals, who come, hail-fellow-well-met, with a bit of 
truth mayhap in their mouths, just to sweeten a parcel of lies and 
swindling. 'Twas only last Friday I lost a matter of fifty shillings' 
worth of plate by such a chap ; and I vowed I'd nab the next. 
Only let him eat one mouthful, just to give a right o' search, and 
see how I'll pounce on him." 

But Jack didn't eat one mouthful ! No ; not even though he 
was uninterrupted, and really had now a fair field before him, and 
was in the very agonies of hunger. It so happened, that he had 
hardly taken up the piece of toast above mentioned, when with a 
voluntary (as it seemed) and strange look of misgiving, he laid it 
down again ! 

" I'm blessed if he's touched it, after all," said waiter the 
first. " Well, this beats everything ! See how he looks about 
him ! He's feeling in his pockets though." 



92 jack Abbott's breakfast, 

"Ah, look at that! " says the landlord. " He's a precious 
rascal, depend on't. I shouldn't wonder if he whisk'd some- 
thing out of the next hox ; but we'll nab him. Let us go to the 
door." 

Mr. Abbott — Jack seems too light an appellation for one 
under his circumstances — looked exceedingly distressed. He 
gazed at the toast with a manifest sigh ; then glanced cautiously 
around him ; then again felt his pockets. At length, he positively 
showed symptoms of quitting his seat. It was clear he did not 
intend eating a bit of this breakfast, any more than of the two 
others. 

" I'll be hanged if he ain't going to bolt again," said the waiter. 

" Nab him ! " said the landlord. 

The unhappy, and, as he thought, secret Abbott makes a 
desperate movement to the door, and is received into the arms of 
this triple alliance. 

" Search his pockets ! " cried the landlord. 

" Three breakfasts, and ne'er a one of 'em eaten ! " cried first 
waiter. 

" Breakfasts afore he collects his spoons," cried second. 

Our hero's pockets were searched almost before he was aware ; 
and nothing found but a book in an unknown language, and a 
pocket-handkerchief. He encouraged the search, however, as 
soon as his astonishment allowed him to be sensible of it, with an 
air of bewildered resignation. 

" He's a Frenchman," said first waiter. 

" He hasn't a penny in his pockets," said second. 

" What a villain !" said the landlord. 

"You're under a mistake — you are, upon my soul!" cried 
poor Jack. " I grant it's odd ; but " 

" Bother and stuff!" said the landlord; where dkl you put 
my spoons last Friday ?" 

" Spoons ! " echoed Jack ; " why, I haven't eaten even a bit 
of your breakfast." 

By this time all the people in the coffee-room had crowded 
into the passage, and a plentiful mob was gathering at the 
door. 

"Here's a chap has had three breakfasts this morning," 
exclaimed the landlord, " and eat ne'er a one ! " 

"Three breakfasts!" cried a broad, dry-looking gentleman 
in spectacles, with a deposition-taking sort of face ; " how could 
he possibly do that ? and why did you serve him ?" 



jack abbott's breakfast. 93 

" Three breakfasts in three different houses, I tell yon," said 
the landlord ; "he's been to my house, and to this man's house, 
and to this man's ; and we've searched him, and he hasn't a 
penny in his pocket." 

" That's it," exclaimed Jack, who had, in vain, tried to be 
heard ; " that's the very reason." 

" What's the very reason ?" said the gentleman in spectacles. 

" Why, I was shocked to find, just now, that I had left my 
purse at home, in the hurry of coming out, and " 

" Oh ! oh ! " cried the laughing audience ; " here's the police- 
man : he'll settle him." 

" But how does that explain the two other breakfasts?" 
returned the gentleman. 

" Not at all," said Jack. 

" Impudent rascal ! " said the landlord. Here the policeman 
is receiving a by- explanation, while Jack is raising his voice to 
proceed. 

" I mean," said he, " that that doesn't explain it; but I can 
explain it." 

" Well, how, my fine fellow ? " said the gentleman, hushing 
the angry landlord, who had, meanwhile, given our hero in 
charge. 

" Don't ]ay hands on me, any of } T ou," cried our hero ; " I'll 
go quietly anywhere, if you let me alone ; but first let me ex- 
plain." 

" Hear him, hear him!" cried the spectators; " and watch 
your pockets." 

Here Jack, reasonably thinking that nothing would help him out 
if the truth did not, but not aware that the truth does not always 
have its just effect, especially when of an extraordinary descrip- 
tion, gave a rapid, but reverent statement of the character of his 
friend in the neighbourhood, whose breakfast had been so in- 
efficient : then an account (all which excited laughter and derision) 
of his going into the first coffee-house, and seeing his friend 
come in (which, nevertheless, had a great effect on the first 
waiter, who knew the old gentleman), and so on of his subsequent 
proceedings ; a development which succeeded in pacifying both 
the waiters, who had, in fact, lost nothing ; so, coming to an 
understanding with one another, they slipped away, much to the 
anger and astonishment of the landlord. This personage, whose 
whole man, since he left off his active life, had become affected 
with drams and tit-bits, and whose irritability was aggravated by 



94 jack abbott's breakfast. 

the late loss of his spoons, persisted in giving poor unbreakfasted 
Jack in charge, especially when he found that he would not send 
for a character to the friend he had been speaking of, and that 
he had no other in town but a lawyer, who lived at the end of it. 
And so off goes our hero to the police-office. 

" You, perhaps, any more than my irritable friend here, don't 
know the sort of literary old gentleman I have been speaking of," 
said Jack to the policeman, as they were moving along. 

" Can't say I do, sir," said the policeman, a highly respect- 
able individual of his class, clean as a pink, and dull as a pike- 
staff. 

" No, nor no one else," said the landlord. " Who's a man 
as can't be sent for ? He's neither here nor there." 

" That's true enough," observed Jack; " he's in Eome or 
Greece by this time, at some pupil's house ; but, wherever he is, 
I can't send to him. With what face could I do it, even if 
possible, in the midst of all this fuss about a breakfast ?" 

"Fuss about white broth, you mean?" said the landlord; 
"my Friday spoons are prettily melted by this time; but Mr. 
Kingsley will fetch all that out." 

" Then he will be an alchemist cunninger than Raymond 
Lully," said our hero. " But what is your charge, pray, after 
all?" 

"False pretences, sir," said the policeman. 

" False pretences !" 

" Yes, sir. You comes, you see, into the gentleman's house 
under the pretence of eating breakfast, and has none ; and that's 
false pretences." 

" That is, supposing I intended them to be false." 

"Yes, sir. In course I don't mean to say as — I only says 
what the gentleman says. — Every man by law is held innocent 
till he's found guilty." 

"You are a very civil, reasonable man," said our warm- 
hearted hero, grateful at this unlooked-for admittance of some- 
thing possible in his favour ; " I respect you. I have no money, 
nor even a spoon to beg your acceptance of ; but pray take this 
book. It's of no use to me ; I've another copy." 

"Mayn't take anything in the execution of my office," said 
the man, giving a glance at the landlord, as if he might have 
done otherwise, had he been out of the way. " Thank'ee all the 
same, sir ; but ain't allowed to have no targhvarsation." 

" Yet your duties are but scantily paid, I believe," said Jack. 



jack abbott's beeakfast. 95 

" However, you've a capital breakfast, no doubt, before you set 
out?" • 

" Not by the reflations, sir," said the policeman. 

"But you have by seven or eight o'clock?" said Jack, 
smiling at his joke. 

" Oh, yes, tight enough, as to that," answered the policeman, 
smiling ; for the subject of eating rouses the wits of everybody. 

" Hot toast, eggs, and all that, I suppose ? " said Jack, heav- 
ing a sigh betwixt mirth and calamity. 

" Can't say I take eggs," returned the other ; "but I takes 
a bit o' cold meat, and a good lot o' bread and butter." And 
here he looked radiant with the reminiscence. 

"Lots- of bread and butter," thought Jack; "what bliss! 
I'll have bread and butter when I breakfast, not toast — it's more 
hearty — and, besides, you get it sooner : bread is sooner spread 
than toasted — thick, thick — I hear the knife plastering the edge 
of the crust before it cuts. Agony of expectation ! When shall 
I breakfast?" 

" The office ! " cried the landlord, hurrying forward; and in 
two minutes our hero found himself in a crowded room, in which 
presided the all-knowing and all-settling Mr. Kingsley. This 
gentleman, who died not long after policemen came up, was the 
last lingering magistrate of the old school. He was a shortish 
stout man, in powder, with a huge vinous face, a hasty expression 
of countenance, Eoman nose, and large lively black eyes ; and he 
always kept his hat on, partly for the most dignified reason in 
the world, because he represented the sovereign magistracy, and 
partly for the most undignified ; to wit, a cold in the head ; for 
to this visitation he had a perpetual tendency, owing to the wine 
he took over-night, and the draughts of air which beset him every 
morning in the police-office. Irritability was his weak side, like 
the landlord's ; but then, agreeably to the inconsistency in that 
case made and provided, he was very intolerant of the weakness 
in others. To sum up his character, he was very loyal to his 
king ; had a great reverence for all the b} 7 gone statesmen of his 
youth, especially such as were orators and lords ; indeed, had no 
little tendency to suppose all rich men respectable, and to let 
them escape too easily if brought before him ; but was severe in 
proportion with what are called " decent" men and tradesmen, 
and very kind to the poor ; and if he loved anything better than 
his dignity, it was a good bottle of port, and an ode of Horace. 
He had not the wit of a Fielding or Dubois ; but he had a spice 



96 jack abbott's breakfast. 

of their scholarship ; and while taking his wine, would nibble you 
the beginnings of half the odes of iris favourite poet, as other 
men do a cake or biscuit. 

To our hero's dismay, a considerable delay took place before 
the landlord's charge could be heard. Time flew, hunger pressed, 
breakfast drew farther off, and the son of the jovial prebendary 
learned what it was to feel the pangs of the want of a penny, for 
he could not buy even a roll. " Immortal Goldsmith ! " thought 
he; "poor Savage! amazing Chatterton ! pathetic Otway ! fine 
old lay-bishop Johnson ! venerable, surly man ! is it possible 
that you ever felt this ! felt it to-morrow too ; and next day ; and 
next ! Ill does it become me then, Jack Abbott, to be impatient ; 
and yet, table-cloth ! thick slices ! tea ! when shall I 
breakfast?" 

The case at length was brought on, and the testimony of the 
absent witnesses admitted by our hero with a nonchalance which 
disgusted the magistrate, and began to rouse his bile. "What 
irritated him the more was, that he saw there would be no proving 
anything, unless the criminal (whom for the very innocence of 
his looks he took for an impudent offender) should somehow or 
other commit himself; which he thought not very likely. In 
fact, as nothing had been eaten, and nothing found on the 
person, there was no real charge ; and Mr. Kingsley had a 
very particular secret reason, as we shall see presently, why 
he could not help feeling that there was one point strongly in 
the defendant's favour. But this only served to irritate him 
the more. 

" Well now, you sir — Mr. What'syourname," quoth' he, in a 
huffing manner, and staring from under his hat ; " what is your 
wonderful explanation of this very extraordinary habit of taking 
three breakfasts : eh, sir ? You seem mighty cool upon it." 

" Sir," answered our hero, whose good nature gifted him with 
a certain kind of address, " it is out of no disrespect to yourself 
that I am cool. You may well be surprised at the circumstances 
under which I find myself ; but in addressing a gentleman and a 
man of understanding, and giving him a plain statement of the 
facts, I have no doubt he will discover a veracity in it which 
escapes eyes less discerning." 

Here the landlord, who instinctively saw the effect which this 
exordium would have upon Kingsley, could not help muttering 
the word " palaver, " J lbud enough to be heard. 

" Silence !" exclaimed the magistrate. " Keep your vulgar 



jack Abbott's breakfast. 97 

words to yourself, sir. And hark'ee, sir, take your" hat off, sir ! 
How dare you come into this office with your hat on ?" 

"Sir, I have a very bad cold, and I thought that in a public 
office " 

" Sir," returned Kingsley, who was doubly offended at this 
excuse about the cold, " think us none of your thoughts, sir. 
Public office ! Public-house, I suppose you mean. Nobody 
wears his hat in this office but myself ; and I only do it as the 
representative of a greater power. Hat, indeed ! I suppose 
some day or other we shall all have the privilege of my Lord 
Kinsale, and wear our hats in the royal presence." 

Jack gave his account of the whole matter, which, from a 
certain ignorance it exhibited of the ways of the town, did appear 
a little romantic to his interrogator ; but the latter, besides 
knowing our hero's lawyer, was not unacquainted with the 
character of Goodall, "who," said he, "is known to every- 
body." 

" Probably, sir," observed the landlord ; " but for that reason 
may not this person have heard of him, and so pretend to be his 
acquaintance ? He calls himself Abbott, but that is not the name 
in the French book he's got about him." 

"Let me see the book," cried Kingsley. "French book! 
It is a Latin book, and a very good book too, and an Elzevir. 
1 E libris Caroli Gibson, 1743.' — A pretty age for the person 
before us truly — a very hale, hearty # young gentleman, some 
ninety years old, or thereabouts." (Here a laugh all over the office ; 
which, together with the sight of the Horace, put Kingsley into 
the greatest good humour.) " You are thinking, I guess, Mr. — a — 
Abbott, of the ' Odi profanum valgus,' I take it ; and wishing 
you could add, ' et arceo.' " * 

"Why, to tell you the truth," answered Jack, "I cannot 
deny a wish to that effect ; but my main thought, for these five 
hours past, has been rather of the 'Nunc est bibendum,'' 'f only 
substituting teacups for goblets." 

" Very good, sir, very good ; and doubtless you admire the 
f Persicos odi, 1 and the * Quid dedicatum,' and that beautiful ode, 
the 'Tides ut altar" \ 

"I do, indeed," said Jack; " and I trust that one of your 
favourites, like mine, is the 'Integer vitce scelerisque punis V " 

* " I hate the profane vulgar, — and drive f hem away." 

f " Now for drinking." 

1 Various beginnings of other odes. 

7 



98 jack Abbott's breakfast. 

" ' Non eget Mauri jaculis, neque arcu' 

(added Kingsley, unable to avoid going on with the quotation), 

" ' Nee venenatis gravida sagittis, 
Fusee, pharetrd,' 

There's something very charming in that * Fusee, pharetra' — so 
short and pithy, and elegant ; and then the pleasant, social 
familiarity of Fusee." 

" Just so," said Jack; " you hit the true relish of it to a 
nicety!" 

" Fussy fair- eater !" muttered the landlord. " A great deal 
move fuss than fair eating. My time's lost — that's certain." 

Kingsley could not resist a few more returns to his favourite 
pages ; but suddenly recollecting himself, he looked grand^and a 
little turbulent, and said — 

" Well, Mr. — a — Landlord — What'syourname, — what's the 
charge here, after all ? for, on my conscience, I cannot see any ; 
and, for my part, I thoroughly believe the gentleman ; and I'll 
give you another reason for it, besides knowing this Mr. Goodall. 
It may not be thought very dignified in me to own it, but dignity 
must give way to justice — ' Fiat justitia, mat ccelum' — and to 
say the truth I, I myself, Mr. Landlord — whatever you may think 
of the confession — came from home this morning without remem- 
bering my purse." 

In short, the upshot was, that the worthy magistrate, seeing 
Bidds' impatience at this confession, and warming the more 
towards his Horatian friend, not only proceeded to throw the 
greatest ridicule on the charge, but gave Jack a note to the 
nearest tavern-keeper, desiring him to furnish the gentleman with 
a breakfast at his expense, and stating the reason why. He then 
proclaimed aloud, as he was directing it, what he had done ; and 
added, that he should be very happy to see so intelligent and 
very innocent a young gentleman, whenever he chose to call upon 
him. 

With abundance of acknowledgments, and in raptures at the 
now certain approach of the bread and butter, Jack made his way 
out of the office, and proceeded for the tavern. 

" At last I have thee!" cried he, internally, " most 
fugacious of meals — what a repast I will make of it ! What a 
breakfast I shall have ? Never will a breakfast have been so 
intensified." 

Jack Abbott, with the note in his hand, arrived at the tavern, 



jack Abbott's bbeakfast. 99 

went up the steps, hurried through the passage. Every inch of 
the way was full of hope and bliss. He sees the bar in an angle 
round the corner, and is hastening into it with the magical docu- 
ment, when lo ! whom should his eyes light on but the plaintiff, 
Bidds himself, detailing his version of the story to the new land- 
lord, and evidently poisoning his mind with every syllable. 

Our modest, albeit not timid, hero, raging with hunger as he 
was, could not stand this. A man of more confident face might 
not unreasonably have presented his note, and stood the brunt of 
the uncomfortableness ; but Jack Abbott, with all his apparent 
thoughtlessness, had one of those natures which feel for the 
improprieties of others, even when they themselves have no sense 
of them ; and he had not the heart to outface the vindictiveness 
of Bidds. To say the truth, Bidds, who was a dull fellow, had 
some reason to be suspicious ; and Jack felt this too, and re- 
treating accordingly, made haste to take the long step to his 
lawyer's. 

" Now the lawyer," quoth he, soliloquizing, " I have never 
seen ; but he was an intimate friend of my father's ; so intimate, 
that I can surely take a household liberty with him, and fairly 
accept his breakfast, if he offers it, as of course he will ; and I 
shall plainly tell him that I prefer breakfast to lunch ; in short, 
that I have made up my mind to have it, even if I wait till 
dinner-time, or tea-time ; and he'll laugh, and we shall be jolly, 
and so I shall get my breakfast at last. Exquisite moment ! 
What a breakfast I shall have ! " 

The lawyer, Mr. Pallinson, occupied a good large house, with 
the marks of plenty on it. Jack hailed the sight of the fire 
blazing in the kitchen. " Delicious spot !" thought he ; " kettle, 
pantry, and all that — comfortable maid- servant too ; hope she 
has milk left, and will cut the bread and butter. A home too — 
good family house. Sure of being comfortable there. Taverns 
not exactly what I took 'em for — not hospitable — not fiducial — ■ 
don't trust ; don't know an honest man when they see him. — 
What slices!" 

But a little baulk presented itself. Jack unfortunately rang 
at the ofiice-heM instead of the house, and found himself among a 
parcel of clerks. Mr. Pallinson was out — not expected at home 
till evening — -had gone to Westminster on special business — and 
at such times always dined at the Mendip Coffee-house. Jack, 
in desperation, fairly stated his case. No result but " Strange, 
indeed, sir," from one of the clerks, and a general look-up from 



100 jack Abbott's kueakjast. 

their desks on the part of the others. Not a syllable of " Won't 
you stop, sir ? " or, " The servant can easily give you breakfast ; " 
or any of those fond succedaneums for the master's presence, 
which our hero's simplicity had fancied. Furthermore, no Mrs. 
Pallinson existed, to whom he might have applied ; and he had 
not the face to ask for any minor goddess of the household. 
Blushing, and stammering a " Good-morning," he again found 
himself in the wide world of pavement and houses. He had got, 
however, his lawyer's direction at the coffee-house, and thither 
accordingly he betook himself, retracing great part of his melan- 
choly steps. 

Had our hero, instead of having passed his time at college 
and in the country, been at all used to living in London, he 
would have set himself down comfortably at once in this or any 
other coffee-house, ordered what he pleased, and despatched a 
messenger in the meanwhile to anybody he wanted. But under 
all the circumstances, he was resolved, for fear of encountering 
further disappointment, to endure whatsoever pangs remained to 
him for the rest of the time, and wait till he saw his solicitor 
come in to dinner. In vain the waiters gave him all encourage- 
ment — " Knew Mr. Pallinson well" — " A most excellent gentle- 
man" — had "recommended many gentlemen to their house." — 
"Would you like anything, sir, before he comes?" — "Like to 
look at the paper ? " and the paper was laid, huge and crisp, 
before him. 

" Ah ! " thought Jack with a sigh, " I know that sound — no, 
I'll certainly wait. Five o'clock isn't far off, and then I'm cer- 
tain. What a breakfast I shall now have, when it does come. 
I'll wait, if I die first, so as to have it in perfect comfort." 

At length five o'clock strikes, and almost at the same moment 
enters Mr. Pallinson. He was a brisk, good-humoured man, 
who had the happy art of throwing off business with the occasion 
for it ; and he acknowledged our hero's claims at once, in a jovial 
voice, " from his likeness to his excellent friend, the prebendary." 
i " Don't say a word more, my dear sir — not a word ; your eyes 
and face tell all. Here, John, plates for two.- You'll dine of 
course with your father's old friend ? or would you like a private 
room?" \ 

Jack's heart felt itself at home at once with this cordiality. 
He said he was very thankful for the offer of the private room, 
especially for a reason which he would explain presently. Having 
entered it, he opened into the history of his morning ; and by 



jack abbott's breakfast. 101 

laughing himself, warranted Pallinson in the bursts of laughter 
which he would have had the greatest difficulty to restrain. But 
the good and merry lawyer, who understood both a joke and a 
comfort to the depth, entered heartily into Jack's whim of still 
having his breakfast, and it was accordingly brought up — not, 
however, without a guarded explanation on the part of the West- 
minster Hall man, who had a professional dislike to seeing any- 
body committed in the eyes of the ignorant ; so he told the waiter, 
that " his friend here had got up so late, and kept such fashion- 
able hours, he must needs breakfast while himself was dining." 
The waiter bowed with great respect ; " and so," says the shrewd 
attorney, " no harm's done; and now, my dear Mr. Abbott, peg 
away." 

Jack needed not this injunction to lay his hand upon the 
prey. The bread and butter was now actually before him ; not so 
thick, indeed, as he had pictured to himself; but there it was, 
real, right-earnest bread and butter ; and since the waiter had 
turned his back, three slices could be rolled into one, and half of 
the coy aggregation clapped into the mouth at once. The lump 
was accordingly made, the fingers whisked it up, and the mouth 
was ready opened to swallow, when the waiter again throws open 
the door — 

" Mr. Goodall, sir." 

" Breakfast is abolished with me," thought Jack; " there's 
no such thing. Henceforward I shall not attempt it." 

The prebendary, the lawyer, and Goodall were all well known 
to each other ; but this is not what had brought him hither. The 
waiter at his coffee-house, where he went to read the papers, and 
where Jack had had his first mischance, had returned home before 
the old gentleman had finished his morning's journal, and told 
him what, to his dusty apprehension, appeared the most confused 
and unaccountable story in the world, of Mr. Abbott having 
ordered three breakfasts and been taken to jail. In his benevo- 
lent uneasiness, he could hardly get through his day's work, which 
unfortunately called him so far as Hackney ; but as soon as it 
was over, he hastened in a coach to Pallinson's, and coming there 
just after Jack had gone, had followed him, -in less uneasiness of 
mind, to the tavern. 

"Well, sir — eh, sir? — why, my dear Mr. Abbott — John — 
James I should say — why, what a dance you have led me to find 
you out ! and very glad I am, I'm sure, sir, to find you so com- 
fortably situated, with our good friend here, after the story which 



102 jack Abbott's breakfast. 

that foolish, half-witted fellow, William, told Hie at the coffee- 
house. Well, sir — eh — and now — I beg pardon — but pray what 
is it, and can I do anything for you ? I suppose not — eh — ah ? 
for here's our excellent friend, Mr. Pallinson — he does everything 
of that sort — bailiff and house — yes, sir, and no doubt it's all 
right — only, if I am wanted, you'll say so ; and so, sir — eh — ah 
— well — but don't let me interrupt your tea, I beg." 

"Luckiest of innocent fancies!" thought our hero, relieved 
from a load of misgiving. " He thinks I'm at tea ! " 

Jack plunged again at the bread and butter, and at last 
actually realised it in his mouth. His calamities were over ! He 
was in the act of breakfasting ! 

" I'm afraid, too," said Goodall, — " eh, my dear sir? — that 
the very sparing breakfast you took at my chambers — eh — ah — 
my, my dear Mr. John — must have contributed not a little to — 
to — yes, sir. Well, but pray now what was the trouble you had, 
of which that foolish fellow told me such flams ? I'm afraid — - 
yes, indeed — I've had great fears sometimes that he ventures to 
tell me stories — things untrue, sir." 

" God bless him and you, both of you," thought Abbott. 
"You're a delicious fellow. — Why, my dear, good sir," continued 
he, always eating, and at the same time racking his brains for 
an invention, — "I beg your pardon — I'm eating a little too 
fast " 

Here he made signs of uneasiness in the throat. 

" The fact is," said Pallinson, coming to the rescue, (for he 
knew that the whole business would fade from Goodall's mind 
next day, or be remembered so dimly that the waiter would hear 
no more of it,) " the fact is, Mr. Abbott met me in Temple Lane, 
where I had been summoned on business so early, that I had 
not breakfasted ; and he said he would order breakfast for me at 
your coffee-house ; and I not coming, he came out to look for me, 
and found me discussing a matter at another tavern -door, with a 
policeman, who had been sent for to take up a swindler ; and 
hence, my good sir, all this stuff about the jail and the two 
breakfasts, for there were only two ; but you know how stories 
accumulate." 

"Very deplorably, indeed, sir," said Goodall; "it always 
was so, and — eh — ah — yes, sir — I fear always will be." 

" I beg pardon," interrupted Jack ; " but may I trouble you 
for that loaf ? These slices are very thin, and I'm so ravenously 
hungry, that " 



jack abbott's beeakfast. 103 

" Glorious moment ! " The inward ejaculation was at last a 
true one. The sturdy slices beautifully made their appearance 
from under the sharp, robust-going, and butter-plastering knife of 
Jack Abbott. Even the hot toast was called for — Goodall having 
" vowed" he'd take his tea also, since they were all three met. 
The eggs were also contrived, and plump went the spoon upon 
their tops in the egg-cup. The huge ham furthermore was not 
wanting. And then the well-filled and thrice-filled breakfast- 
cup ; — excellent was its strong and well-milked tea, between black 
and green, " with an eye of tawny in it ;" something with a body, 
although most liquidly refreshing. Jack doubled his thick slices ; 
he took huge bites ; he swilled his tea, as he had sworn in thought 
he would ; and he had the eggs on one side of him, and the ham 
on the other, and his friends before him, and was as happy as a 
prince escaped into a foreign land (for no prince in possession 
knows such moments as these) ; and when he had at length 
finished, talking and laughing all the while, or hearing talk and 
laugh, he pushed the breakfast- cup aside, and said to himself, 

" I've had it ! — breakfast hath been mine ! — And now, my 
dear Mr. Pallinson, I'll take a glass of your port." 



( 104 ) 



ON SEEING A PIGEON MAKE LOYE. 

" Ut albulus columbus, aut Adoneus ? " — Catullus. 
Which is he ? Pigeon, or Adonis ? 



FRENCH INTERMIXTURE OP PROSE AND VERSE — COURTSHIP OF PIGEONS 
A WORD IN PITY FOR RAKES — STORY OF ONE BAFFLED — INSTINC- 
TIVE SAMENESS OF THE CONDUCT OF THE LOWER ANIMALS QUES- 
TIONED — POPE'S OPINION RESPECTING INSTINCT AND REASON 

HUMAN IMPROVABILITY — FITNESS OF SOME OF THE LOWER ANIMALS 
FOR GOING TO HEAVEN NOT LESS CONCEIVABLE THAN THAT OF SOME 
OTHERS — DOVES AT MAIANO — OVID'S BIRD-ELYSIUM. 

The French have a lazy way, in some of their compositions, of 
writing prose and verse alternately. The author, whenever it is 
convenient for him to be inspired, begins dancing away in rhyme. 
The fit over, he goes on as before, as if nothing had happened. 
We have essays in prose and verse by Cowley (a delightful book) 
in which the same piece contains both ; but with one exception, 
they are rather poems with long prefaces. 

If ever this practice is allowable, it is to a periodical writer in 
love with poetry. He is obliged to write prose ; he is tormented 
with the desire of venting himself in rhyme ; he rhymes, and has 
not leisure to go on. Behold us, as a Frenchman would say, 
with our rhyme and our reason ! 

The following verses were suggested by a sight of a pigeon 
making love. The scene took place in a large sitting-room, 
where a beau might have followed a lady up and down with as 
bustling a solicitation : he could not have done it with more. 
The birds had been brought there for sale ; but they knew no 
more of this than two lovers whom destiny has designs upon. 
The gentleman was as much at his ease as if he had been a 
Bond Street lounger pursuing his fair in a solitary street. We 
must add, as an excuse for the abruptness of the exordium, that 
the house belonged to a poet of our acquaintance, who was in the 
room at the same time.* 

* Lord Byron. The house was the Casa Saluzzi, at Albaro,near Genoa. 



ON SEEING A PIGEON MAKE LOVE. 105 

Is not the picture strangely like ? 
Doesn't the very bowing strike ? 
Can any art of love in fashion 
Express a more prevailing passion ? 
That air — that sticking to her side — 
That deference, ill concealing pride, — 
That seeming consciousness of coat, 
And repetition of one note, — 
Ducking and tossing back his head, 
As if at every bow be said, 
" Madam, by Heaven," — or " Strike me dead." 

And then the lady ! look at her : 
What bridling sense of character ! 
How she declines, and seems to go, 
Yet still endures him to and fro ; 
Carrying her plumes and pretty clothings, 
Blushing stare, and mutter'd nothings, 
Body plump, and airy feet, 
Like any charmer in a street. 

Give him a hat beneath his w r ing, 
And is not he the very thing ? 
Give her a parasol or plaything, 
And is not she the very she -thing ? 

Our companion, who had run the round of the great world, 
seemed to be rather mortified than otherwise at this spectacle. 
It was certainly calculated, at first blush, to damp the pride of 
the circles : but upon reflection, it seemed to afford a considerable 
lift to beaux and belles in ordinary. It seemed to show how 
much of instinct, and of the common unreflecting course of things, 
there is even in the gallantries of those who flatter themselves 
that they are vicious. Nobody expects wisdom in these persons ; 
and if they can be found to be less guilty than is supposed, the 
gain is much : for, as to letting the dignity of human nature 
depend upon theirs, on the one hand, or expecting to bring about 
any change in their conduct by lecturing them on their faults, on 
the other, it is a speculation equally hopeless. 

If a man of pleasure " about town " is swayed by anything, it 
is by a fear of becoming ridiculous. If he must continue in his 
old courses, it is pleasant to know him for what he is, and that 
pigeons are not confined to the gaming-table. 

We followed once a young man of fashion in and out a variety 
of streets at the west end of the town, through which he was 
haunting a poor blushing damsel, who appeared to be at once 
distressed by him and endangered. We thought she seemed to 



106 ON SEEING A PIGEON MAKE LOVE. 

be wishing for something to turn the scale in favour of her self- 
denial ; and we resolved to furnish it. Could the consequences 
of his success have rested entirely with himself, we saw enough 
of the pigeon in him not to have been so ill-bred as to " spoil 
sport ; " but considering, as times go, that what is sport to the 
gentleman in these cases is very often death to the lady, we found 
ourselves compelled to be rude and conscientious. In vain he 
looked round every now and then, putting on his best astonish- 
ment, and cursing, no doubt, " the indelicacy of the fellow.". 
There we were, low and insolent, — sticking to his skirts, wonder- 
ing whether he would think us of importance enough for a 
challenge, and by what bon-mot or other ingenious baffling of his 
resentment, we should contrive at once to save our life and the 
lady. At length, he turns abruptly across the street, and we 
followed the poor girl, till she was at a safe distance. We 
caught but one other glimpse of her face, which was as red as 
scarlet. We fancied, when all was safe, that some anger against 
her deliverer might mingle with her blushes, and were obliged to 
encourage ourselves against a sort of shame for our interference. 
We wished we could have spoken to her ; but this was impossible ; 
nay, considering the mutual tenderness of our virtue at that 
instant, might have been dangerous. So we made our retreat in 
the same manner as our gentleman ; and have thought of her face 
with kindness ever since. 

To return to our pigeons : — the description given in the 
verses is true to the letter. The reader must not think it a 
poetical exaggeration. If he has ever witnessed an exhibition 
of the kind, he has no conception of the high human hand with 
which these pigeons carry it. The poets indeed, time out of 
mind, have taken amatory illustrations from them ; but the 
literal courtship surpasses them all. One sight of a pigeon paying 
his addresses would be sufficient to unsettle in our minds all 
those proud conclusions which we draw respecting the difference 
between reason and instinct. If this is mere instinct as dis- 
tinguished from reason, if a bird follows another bird up and 
down by a simple mechanical impulse, giving himself all the airs 
and graces imaginable, exciting as many in his mistress, and 
uttering every moment articulate sounds which we are no more 
bound to suppose deficient in meaning than a pigeon would be 
warranted in supposing the same of our own speech, then reason 
itself may be no more than a mechanical impulse. It has nothing 
better to show for it. Our mechanism may possess a greater 



ON SEEING A PIGEON MAKE LOVE. 107 

variety of movements, and be more adapted to a variety of circum- 
stances ; but if there is not variety here, and an adaptation to 
circumstances, we know not where there is. If it be answered, 
that pigeons would never make love in any other manner, under 
any circumstances, we do not know that. Have people observed 
them sufficiently to know that they always make love equally 
well ? If they have varied at any time, they may vary again. 
Our own modes of courtship are undoubtedly very numerous ; and 
some of them are as different from others, as the courtship of the 
pigeon itself from that of the hog. But though we are observers 
of ourselves, have we yet observed other animals sufficiently to 
pronounce upon the limits of their capacity ? We are apt to 
suppose that all sheep and oxen resemble one another in the face. 
The slightest observation convinces us that their countenances are 
as various as those of men. How are we to know that the shades 
and modifications of their character and conduct are not as 
various ? A well- drilled nation would hardly look more various 
in the eyes of a bee, than a swarm of bees does in our own. The 
minuter differences in our conduct would escape them for want of 
the habit of observing us, and because their own are of another 
sort. How are we to say that we do not judge them as ill ? 
Every fresh speculation into the habits and manners of that 
singular little people, produces new and extraordinary discoveries. 
The bees in Buffon's time were in the habit, when they built their 
hives, of providing for a certain departure from the more obvious 
rules of architecture, which at a particular part of the construc- 
tion became necessary. Buffon ingeniously argued, that because 
they always practised this secret geometry, and never did other- 
wise, their apparent departure itself was but another piece of 
instinct ; and he concluded that they always had done so, and 
always would. Possibly they will ; but the conclusion is not 
made out by his argument. A being who knows how to build 
better than we do, might as well assert, that because we have not 
arrived at certain parts of his knowledge, we never shall. Observe 
the vast time which it takes us, with all our boasted reason, to 
attain to improvements in our own arts and sciences : think how 
little we know after all ; what little certainty we have respecting 
periods which are but as yesterday, compared with the mighty 
lapse of time ; and judge how much right we have to say, This we 
never did — This we shall never be able to do. 

We have read of some beavers, that when they were put into 
a situation very different from their ordinary on^, and incited to 



108 ON SEEING A PIGEON MAKE LOVE. 

build a house, they set about their work in a style as ingeniously 
adapted as possible to their new circumstances. BufTon might 
say, they had been in this situation before ; he might also argue 
that they were provided with an instinct against the emergency. 
One argument appears to me as good as the other. But under 
the circumstances, he might tell us, that they would probably act 
with stupidity. And what is done by many human beings ? Is 
our reason as good for us all on one occasion as another ? The 
individuals of the same race of animals are not all equally clever, 
any more than ourselves. The more they come under our inspec- 
tion (as in the case of dogs), the more varieties we discern in 
their characters and understandings. The most philosophical 
thing hitherto said on this subject appears to be that of Pope. 

" I shall be very glad," said Spence, " to see Dr. Hales, 
and always love to see him, he is so worthy and good a man." 
Pope. — " Yes, he is a very good man ; only I'm sorry he has his 
hands so much imbrued in blood." Spence. — " What ! he cuts 
up rats ? " Pope. — " Ay, and dogs too ! " (With what emphasis 
and concern, says the relater, he spoke it.) " Indeed, he commits 
most of these barbarities with the thought of being of use to man ; 
but how do we know that we have a right to kill creatures that 
we are so little above as dogs, for our curiosity, or even for some 
use to us ? " Spence. — "I used to carry it too far: I thought 
they had reason as well as we." Pope. — " So they have, to be 
sure. All our disputes about that are only disputes about words. 
Man has reason enough only to know what is necessary for him 
to know, and dogs have just that too." Spence. — " But then 
they have souls too, as imperishable in their nature as ours ? " 
Pope. — "And what harm would that be to us?" 

All this passage is admirable, and helps to make us love, as 
we ought to do, a man who has contributed so much to the enter- 
tainment of the world. 

That dogs, like men, have " reason enough only to know 
what is necessary for them to know," is, of course, no argument 
against their acting in a new manner under novel circumstances. 
It is the same with us. Necessities alter with circumstances. 
There is a well-authenticated story of a dog, who, having been 
ill-treated by a larger one, went and brought a still larger dog to 
avenge his cause, and see justice done him. When does a human 
necessity reason better than this ? The greatest distinction 
between men and other animals appears to consist in this, that 
the former make a point of cultivating their reason ; and yet it is 



ON SEEING A PIGEON MAKE LOVE. 109 

impossible to say that nothing of the kind has ever been done by 
the latter. Birds and beasts in general do not take the trouble 
of going out of their ordinary course : but is the ambition of the 
common run of human beings any greater ? Have not peasants 
and mechanics, and even those who flourish and grow learned 
under establishments, an equal tendency to deprecate the necessity 
of innovation ? A farmer would go on with his old plough, a 
weaver with his old loom, and a placeman with his old opinions, 
to all eternity, if it were not for the restlessness of individuals ; 
and these are forced to battle their way against a thousand pre- 
judices, even to do the greatest good. An established critic has 
not always a right to triumph over the learned pig. 

We have been told by some, that the " swinish multitude " 
are better without books. Now the utmost which the holders of 
this opinion can say for the superior reason of their species, is, 
that pigs dispense already with a knowledge which is unfit for 
man. They tell us, nevertheless (and we receive the text with 
reverence), that a day shall come when " the lion will lie down 
with the lamb ; " and yet they will laugh in your face, if you 
suspect that beasts may be improveable creatures, or even that 
men may deserve to be made wiser. But they will say, that this 
great event is not to be brought about by knowledge. Some 
of their texts say otherwise. We believe, that all which they 
know of the matter is, that it will not be brought about by them- 
selves. 

But we must not be led away from the dignity of our subject 
by the natural tendencies of these gentlemen. Human means 
are divine means, if the end be divine. Without controverting 
the spirit of the text in question, it would be difficult, from what 
we see already of the power of different animals to associate 
kindly with each other (such as lions with dogs, cats with birds 
in the same cages, &c), to pronounce upon the limits of improve- 
ability in the brute creation, as far as their organs will allow. 
We would not venture to assert that, in the course of ages, and 
by the improved action of those causes which give rise to their 
present state of being, the organs themselves will not undergo 
alteration. There is a part in the pectoral conformation of the 
male human being which is a great puzzle to the anatomists, and 
reminds us of one of Plato's reveries on the original state of man- 
kind. When the Divine Spirit acts, it may act through the 
medium of human knowledge and will, as well as any other, — as 
well as through the trunk of a tree in the pushing out of a 



110 ON SEEING A PIGEON MAKE LOVE. 

blossom. New productions are supposed to take place from time 
to time in the rest of the creation : old ones are known to have 
become extinct. 

Be this as it may, we are not to conclude that the world 
always w T as and always will be such as it is, simply because the 
little space of time, during which we know of its existence, offers 
to us no extraordinary novelty. The humility of a philosopher's 
ignorance (and there is more humility in his very pride, than in 
the " prostration of intellect " so earnestly recommended by some 
persons) is sufficient to guard him against this conclusion, setting 
aside Plato and the mammoth. 

/With respect to other animals going to heaven, our pride 
smiles in a sovereign manner at this speculation. We have no 
objection, somehow, to a mean origin ; but we insist that nothing 
less dignified than ourselves can be immortal. We are sorry we 
cannot settle the question. We confess (if the reader will allow 
us to suppose that we shall go to heaven, which does not require 
much modesty, considering all those who appear to be certain of 
doing so) we would fain have as much company as possible ; and 
He was of no different opinion, who told us that a time should 
come when the sucking child should play with the asp. We see, 
that the poet had no more objection to his dog's company in a 
state of bliss, than the "poor Indian," of whom he speaks in his 
Essay.* We think we could name other celebrated authors, who 
would as lief take their dogs into the next world as a king or a 
bishop, and yet they have no objection to either. We may con- 
ceive much less pleasant additions to our society than a flock of 
doves, which, indeed, have a certain fitness for an Elysian state. 
We would confine our argument to one simple question, which the 
candid reader will allow us to ask him : — " Does not Tomkins go 

* " Lo ! the poor Indian, whose untutored mind, 
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind : 
His soul proud science never taught to stray 
Ear as the solar walk, or milky way; 
Yet simple nature to his hope has given, 
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven ; 
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, 
Some happier island in the watery waste, 
Where slaves once more fcheir native land behold, — 
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. 
To be, contents his natural desire, — 
lie asks no angel's wings, no seraph's lire; 
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 
His faithful dog shall bear him company." 



ON SEEING A PIGEON MAKE LOVE. * 111 

to heaven ? " Has not the veriest bumpkin of a squire, that 
rides after the hounds, an immortal soul ? If so, why not the 
whole pack ? It may be said, that the pack are too brutal and 
blood-thirsty : they would require a great deal of improvement. 
Well, let them have it, and the squire along with them. It has 
been thought by some, that the brutal, or those who are unfit for 
heaven, will be annihilated. Others conceive that they will be 
bettered in other shapes. Whatever be the case, it is difficult to 
think that many beasts and birds are not as fit to go to heaven at 
once as many human beings, — people, who talk of their seats 
there with as much confidence as if they had booked their names 
for them at a box-office. To our humble taste, the goodness and 
kindness in the countenance of a faithful dog are things that 
appear almost as fit for heaven as serenity in a human being. 
The prophets of old, in their visions, saw nothing to hinder them 
from joining the faces of other animals with those of men. The 
spirit that moved the animal was everything. 

It was the opinion of a late writer, that the immortality of 
the soul depended on the cultivation of the intellect. He could 
not conceive, how the sots and fools that abound on this earth 
could have any pretensions to eternity ; or with what feelings they 
were to enter upon their new condition. There appears to be too 
much of the pride, of intellect in this opinion, and too little allow- 
ance for circumstances ; and yet, if the dispensation that is to 
take us to heaven is of the exclusive kind that some would make 
it, this is surely the more noble dogma. The other makes it 
depend on the mere will of the Divinity, or (to speak plainly) 
upon a system of favouritism, that w r ould render a human tyranny 
unbearable. We are not here speaking of the mild tenets incul- 
cated by the spirit of the Church of England, but of those of 
certain sects. In neither case would the majority of us have 
much better pretensions to go to heaven than the multitude of 
other animals ; nor, perhaps, a jot more, if we knew all their 
thoughts and feelings. But we shall stray from our subject, and 
grow more positive than becomes a waking dream. 

To conclude with the pleasant animals with whom we com- 
menced, there is a flock of pigeons in the neighbourhood where 
we are writing,* whom we might suppose to be enjoying a sort of 
heaven on earth. The place is fit to be their paradise. There is 
plenty of food for them, the dovecots are excellent, the scene full 

* At Maiano, near Florence. 



112 , ON SEEING A PIGEON MAKE LOVE. 

of vines in summer-time, and of olives all the year round. It 
happens, in short, to be the very spot where Boccaccio is said to 
have laid the scene of his Decameron. He lived there himself. 
Fiesole is on the height ; the Valley of Ladies in the hollow ; 
the brooks are all poetical and celebrated. As we behold this 
flock of doves careering about the hamlet, and whitening in and 
out of the green trees, we cannot help fancying that they are the 
souls of the gentle company in the Decameron, come to enjoy 
in peace their old neighbourhood. We think, as we look at them, 
that they are now as free from intrusion and scandal as they are 
innocent; and that no falcon would touch them, for the sake of 
the story they told of him.'" 

Ovid, in one of his elegies, f tells us, that birds have a 
Paradise near Elysium. Doves, be sure, are not omitted. But 
peacocks and parrots go there also. The poet was more tolerant 
in his orni-theology than the priests in Delphos, who, in the 
sacred groves about their temple, admitted doves, and doves 
only. 

* The well-known and beautiful story of the Decameron. Mr. Proctor 
has touched it in a high and worthy strain of enthusiasm in his Dramatic 
Sketches. 

f Amorum, lib. ii. eleg. 6. 



( 113 ) 



THE MONTH OF MAY. 

MIGHT NOT THE MAT-HOLIDAYS BE RESTORED ? — MELANCHOLY BEMNAKT 
OF THEM — RECOLLECTIONS OF A MAY-MORNING IN ITALY, 

Those who reasonably object to the feudality of the old times, 
or the extreme inequalities of their condition, think that the old 
holidays were essentially connected with these inequalities, and 
that we could not have them again without renewing the ancient 
dependency of the poorer classes upon the givers of Christian 
dinners, and the beggings from door to door for the May garland. 
But this does not follow. We may surely rejoice in similar ways, 
by other means. The object of all true advancement is not to 
get rid of bad and good together, but to retain or restore the 
good, to increase it, and enjoy it all better than before. The 
songs of May have been suspended, not merely because the inter- 
course has grown less between landlord and tenant, or the lord of 
the manor and the villagers, but because the singers have had to 
" pay the piper " for very different tunes blown by trumpets, and 
blown by their own connivance too, as well as that of the rich. 
They have grown wiser : all are grown wiser : we blame nobody 
in these our philosophical pages, any more than we desire our- 
selves to be blamed. All have had something to be sorry for, 
during contests carried on with partial knowledge ; and all will 
doubtless do away the wrong part of contest, in proportion as 
knowledge increases. We blame not even the contests them- 
selves ; which in the mysterious working of the operations of this 
world may have been necessary, for aught we know, to the speedier 
abolition of the evils mixed up with them. All we mean to say 
is, that, as knowledge and comfort advance, there is no reason 
whatever why old good things should not revive, as well as new 
good ones be created ; and, for our parts, if society were wise, 
comfortable, and in a condition to enjoy itself without hurting the 
feelings of any portion of it, we do not see how it could help 
renewing its bursts of delight and congratulation amidst the 



114 THE MONTH OF MAY. 

beauties of new seasons, any more than it could help seeing them, 
and knowing how beautiful they are. 

Meantime, as certain patient and hopeful politicians, not long 
ago, kept a certain small fire alive, in the midst of everything 
that threatened to put it out, which is now lighting all England, 
and promising better times to the very seasons we speak of, so 
shall we persist, as we have always done, in keeping up a cer- 
tain fragrant and flowery belief on the altars of May and June, 
in these sequestered corners of literature, ready against those 
better times, and already rewarding us for our perseverance, 
because the belief is spreading, and the corners beginning to lose 
their solitude. 

" Hue ades : — tibi lilia plenis, 
Ecce, ferunt Nymphae calathis ; tibi Candida Nais 
Pallentes violas et summa papavera carpens, 
Narcissum et florem jungit bene olentis anethi ; 
Turn, casia atqne alii s intexens suavibus herbis, 
Mollia luteola pingit vaccinia caltha." — Virgil. 

" Come, take the presents which the nymphs prepare : 
White lilies in full canisters they bring, 
With all the purple glories of the spring ; 
The daughters of the flood have search'd the mead 
For violets pale, and cropp'd the poppy's head ; 
The brief narcissus and fair daffodil, 
Pansies to please the sight, and cassia sweet to smell." — Dryden. 

But where shall we begin, or what authors quote, on the much- 
quoted subject of May ? It is a principle with us, in making a 
selection from our writings, to repeat as little as possible of what 
has been extracted into other publications ; and thus we are cut 
off from a heap of books which have contributed their stores to 
the illustration of the season. We cannot quote Brady ; we 
cannot quote Brand ; we cannot quote Aikin ; nor Hone, nor 
Howitt, nor ourselves (which is hard), nor the venerable Stowc, 
nor Forstor, nor Patmore : nor again, in poetry, may we repeat 
the quotation from Chaucer about May and the Daisy ; nor 
Milton's Ode to May-morning; nor Spenser's joyous dance on the 
subject (in his Eclogues) ; nor his divine personification of the 
month in the Fairy Queen, book vi. ; nor Shakspeare's passage in 
Henry the 'Eighth^ about the impossibility of keeping people in 
their beds on May-morning; nor Moore's Young May-moan, 
("young" moon for "new," thus prettily turning Luna into a 
girl of fifteen) ; nor Thomson's rich landscape in the Castle of 



THE MONTH OF MAY. 115 

Indolence " atween June and Ma} 7 ;" nor Mr. LovibancTs Tears of 
old May -clay ; nor Gay on the May-pole; nor Wordsworth's bit 
about the month, nor Dr. Darwin's [ode (which luckily is not 
worth quoting), nor twenty other poets, great and small ; nor 
Keats (one of the first), who has described a May-bush " with the 
bees about it." And so with this we conclude our list of nega- 
tions ; for even out of things negative, we would show how a 
positive pleasure may be extracted. 

But the poets are not yet exhausted on this subject, — nor a 
fiftieth part of them. How could they be, and May be what it is, 
especially in the south ? We only wish we had time and space, 
and a huge library, and could quote all we could think of, the 
reader should feel as if our pages scented of May-blossom, and 
ran over with milk and honey. We hope, however, to give him a 
specimen or two before we close our article. Meantime, in order 
to get rid of all the melancholy that will force itself into the 
subject, and make a clear field for our true May-time, we have 
two observations to make ; first, that if the first of the month 
turn out badly, it is not the fault of the May-day of our ancestors, 
which was twelve days later, or what is now called Old May- day 
(the day otherwise does not much signify ; for it is a sentiment, 
and not a date, which is the thing concerned) ; and second, that 
the only remnant of the old festivities now left us, like a sorry jest 
and a smeared face, is that melancholy burlesque the chimney- 
sweepers, — melancholy, however, not to themselves, and so far, to 
nobody else ; neither would we have them brow-beaten, but made 
as merry as possible on this their only holiday ; — but it is melan- 
choly to think, that all the mirth of the day is left to their keep- 
ing. If their trade were a healthy one, it would be another 
matter ; if we were even sure that they were not beaten and 
bruised when they got home, it would be something. As it is, 
we can only give money to them (if one has it) and wish them a 
less horrible mixture of tinsel, dirty skin, dance, and disease. 
Nevertheless, the dance is something : sacred be the dance, and 
the desecration thereof; and sacred the laugh of the frightfully 
red lips amidst that poisonous black. Give them money, for 
God's sake, all you that inhabit squares and great streets, and 
then do your utmost, from that day forward, never again to let 
May-day blossom into those funereal flowers of living and fantastic 
death. 

The last pleasant remnant of a town exhibition in connexion 
with the old May holidays, was the milkmaid's garland. There 



116 THE MONTH OF MAY. 

was something in that. A set of buxom lasses, breathing of the 
morning air and the dairy, were a little more native to the purpose 
than these poor devils of the chimney. But even these have 
long vanished. They are rarely to be found, even in the exercise 
of their daily calling. Milkmaids have been turned into milk- 
men ; and when the latter, in their transference of the virgin 
title to the buyers instead of the sellers of milk, call out (as they 
do in some quarters of the town), " Come, pretty maids," nine old 
women issue out of the areas in the street, milk-jug in hand, and 
all hobbling ; — all rheumatic, in consequence of not having been 
in the fields these twenty years. 

" My soul, turn from them." Get not rheumatic thyself, nor 
do thou, dear reader, consent to be old before thy time, and 
oppressed with cough and chagrin, especially in spring weather ; 
but get up betimes on a May morning, if it be only in fancy, and 
send your thoughts wandering among the dewy May- bushes, and 
the songs of birds. Nay, if you live in the country, or on the 
borders of it, and if the morning itself be not ungenial, it will do 
you no harm to venture personally, as well as spiritually, among 
the haunts of your jovial ancestors, — the men who helped to put 
blood and spirit into your race ; or if cosy old habit is too strong 
for you to begin at so short a notice, and the united charms of 
bed and breakfast prevail over the " raw " air, you are a man too 
masculine at heart, and too generous, not to wish that your 
children may grow up in better habits than yourself, or recall the 
morning hours of your own childhood ; and they can go forth 
into the neighbourhood, and see what is to be seen, — what beau- 
teous and odorous May-boughs they can bring home, young and fair 
as themselves, — the flowery breath of morning — the white virgin 
blossom — the myrtle of the hedges. The voices of children seem 
as natural to the early morn as the voice of the birds. The 
suddenness, the lightness, the loudness, the sweet confusion, the 
sparkling gaiety, seem alike in both. The sudden little jangle is 
now here, and now there ; and now a single voice calls out to 
another voice, and the boy is off like the bird. 

"When we had the like opportunities, not a May did we pass, 
if we could help it, without keeping up the good old religion of 
the season, and heaping ourselves and our children with blossom 
enough to make a bower of the breakfast -room : so that we only 
preach what we have practised. If we were happy, it added to 
our happiness, and was like a practical hymn of gratitude. If 
we were unhappy, it helped to save our unhappinesB from the addi- 



THE MONTH OF MAY. 117 

' tion of impatience and despair. We looked round upon the 
beautiful country, and the world of green and blossom, and said 
to ourselves, " We can still enjoy these. We still belong to the 
paradise of good-will.' 1 ' 

Therefore we say to all good-willers, " Enjoy what you can 
of May-time, and help others to enjoy it, if it be but with a 
blossom, or a verse, or a pleasant thought." Let us 'all help, 
each of us, to keep up our spark of the sacred fire — the same, we 
may dare to believe, which fires the buds themselves, and the 
song of the birds, and puts the flush into the cheek of delight ; 
and hope, faith, and charity into the heart of man ; for if one 
great cause of love and good-will does not do this, what does, or 
what can ? 

May, or the time of the year analogous to it in different coun- 
tries, is more or less a holiday in all parts of the civilized world, 
and has been such from time immemorial. Nothing but the most 
artificial state of life can extinguish or suspend it : it is always 
ready to return with the love of nature. Hence the vernal holi- 
days of the Greeks and Romans, their songs of the Swallow, and 
vigils of the Goddess of Love ; hence the Beltein of the Celtic 
nations, and the descent of the god Krishna upon the plains of 
Indra, where he sported, like a proper Eastern prince, with 
sixteen thousand milkmaids ; a reasonable assortment. 

In no place in the world perhaps but in England (which is 
another reason why so great and beautiful a country should get 
rid of the disgrace), is the remnant of the May-holiday reduced 
to so melancholy a burlesque as our soot and tinsel. The neces- 
sities of war and trade may have produced throughout Europe a 
suspension of the main spirit of the thing, and a consciousness 
that the means of enjoyment must be restored before there can be 
a proper return to it. We hope and believe, that when they are 
restored, the enjoyment will be greater than ever, through the 
addition of taste and knowledge. But meanwhile, we do not 
believe that the sense of its present imperfection has been suf- 
fered anywhere else to fall to a pitch so low. In Tuscany, where 
we have lived, it has still its guitar and its song ; and its jokes 
are on pleasant subjects, not painful ones. We remember being 
awakened on May-day morning, at the village of Maiano, near 
Fiesole, by a noise of instruments and merry voices* in the court 
of the house in which we lodged, — a house with a farm and vine- 
yard attached to it, where the cultivator, or small farmer, lived in 
a smaller detached dwelling, and accounted to the proprietor for 



118 THE MONTH OF MAY. 

half the produce, — a common arrangement in that part of the 
world. The air which was played and sung was a sort of merry 
chaunt, as old perhaps as the time of Lorenzo de' Medici ; the 
words to it were addressed to the occupiers of the mansion, to the 
neighbours, or to anybody who happened to show their face ; and 
they turned upon an imaginary connexion between the qualities of 
the person mentioned, and the capabilities of the season. We 
got up, and looked out of the window ; and there, in the beautiful 
Italian morning, under a blue sky, amidst grass and bushes, and 
the white out-houses of the farm, stood a group of rustic guitar- 
players, joking good-humouredly upon every one who appeared, 
and welcomed as good-humouredly by the person joked on. The 
verses were in homely couplets ; and the burden or leading idea 
of every couplet was the same. A respectable old Jewish gentle- 
man, for instance, resided there ; and he no sooner showed his 
face, than he was accosted as the patron of the corn- season,-:— as 
the genial influence without whom there was to be no bread. 

" Ora di Maggio fiorisce il grano, 
Ma non pud estrarsi senza il Sior Abramo." 

Now in May-time comes the corn ; but, quoth he, though come I am, 
I should never have been here, but for Signor Abraham. 

A lady put forth her pretty laughing face (and a most good- 
tempered woman she was). She is hailed as the goddess of the 
May-bush. 

" Ora di Maggio viene il nor di spina, 
Ma non viene senza la Signora Allegrina." 

Now in May- time comes the bush, all to crown its quecn-a, 
But it never would without Signora Allegrina. 

A poor fellow, a servant, named Giuseppino or Peppino (Joe), 
who was given to drinking (a rare thing in Italy), and was a 
great admirer of the fair sex (a thing not so uncommon), crosses 
the court with a jug in his hand. It was curious to see the con- 
scious, but not resentful face, with which he received the banter 
of his friends. 

"" Ora di Maggio fiorisce amor c vino, 

Ma ni l'un ni l'altro senza il Sior Peppino." 

Now in May-time comes the flower of love and wine also ; 
But there's neither one nor t' other, without Signor Joe. 



THE MONTH OF MAY. 119 

With this true bit of a taste of May for the reader's rumina- 
tions, we close our present article. It would be an " advance- 
ment " to look out of a May-morning in England, and see guitar- 
players instead of chimney-sweeps.* 

* Since this article was written, the condition of the chimney-sweepers 
has been greatly mitigated. 



THE GIULI TEE * 



SPECIMEN OF SONNETS WRITTEN ON THIS SUBJECT BY THE 
ABATE CASTI. 



The Giuli Tre (Three Juliuses, so called from a head of one of 
the Popes of that name) are three pieces of money, answering to 
ahout fifteenpence of our coin, for which the Italian poet, Casti, 
says he was pestered from day to clay by an inexorable creditor. 
The poet accordingly had his revenge on him, and incarcerated 
the man in immortal amber, by devoting to the subject no less 
than two hundred sonnets, which he published under the above 
title. The Abate Casti is known to the English public, by means 
of Mr. Stewart Rose's pleasant abridgment, as the author of the 
Animali Parlanti ; and he is also known, to what we suppose must 
be called the English private, as the writer of a set of Tales in 
verse, which an acquaintance of ours says " everybody has read, 
and nobody acknowledges to have read." The Animali Parlanti 
is celebrated throughout Europe. The Tales have the undeniable 
merit which a man of genius puts into whatever work he con- 
descends to execute ; but they are a gross mistake in things 
amatory, and furnish one of those portentous specimens of excess 
on the side of free writing, wdiich those who refer every detail of 
the world to Providence could only account for by supposing, 
that some such addition of fuel was necessary to the ordinary 
inflammability of the young and unthinking. 

The work before us, as the Florentine editor observes, is in 
every respect unexceptionable. He informs us, that it is not 
liable to a charge brought against the Abate's other works, of 
being too careless in point of style, and un-idiomatic. The 
Giuli Tre, according to him, speak the true Italian language; so 
that the recommendation they bring with them to foreigners is 
complete. 

We proceed to give some specimens. The fertility of fancy 

* Pronounced (" for the benefit of the country gentlemen," and for the 
sake of the euphony in the perusal of our versions) Joolee Tray, 



THE GIULI -THE. 121 

and learned allusion, with which the author has written his two 
hundred sonnets on a man coming to him every day and asking 
him for Tre Giuli, is inferior only to what Butler or Marvell 
might have made of it. The very recurrence of the words 
becomes a good joke. 

Nobody that we have met with in Italy could resist the men- 
tion of them. The priest did not pretend it. The ladies were 
glad they could find something to approve in a poet of so erro- 
neous a reputation. The man of the world laughed as merrily as 
he could. The patriot was happy to relax his mustachios. Even 
the bookseller, of whom we bought them, laughed with a real 
laugh, and looked into the book as if he would fain have sat 
down and read some of it with us, instead of going on with his 
business. 

We shall notice some of the principal sonnets that struck us 
throughout the work, and wish we could touch upon them all, 
partly that we might give as much account of it as possible, and 
partly because the jest is concerned in showing to what a length 
it is carried. But we are compelled to be brief. It may be as 
well to mention, that the single instead of double rhymes which 
the poet uses, and which render the measure exactly similar to 
that of the translation, have a ludicrous effect to an Italian ear. 

In his third sonnet, the poet requests fables and dreams to 
keep their distance : — 

" Lungi, o favole, o sogni, or voi da me, 
Or che la Musa mia tessendo va 
La yera istoria delli Giuli Tre." 

Ye dreams and fables, keep aloof, I pray, 
While this my Muse keeps spinning, as she goes, 
The genuine history of the Giuli Tre. 

Son. viii. — His Creditor, he says, ought not to be astonished 
at his always returning the same answer to his demand for the 
Giuli Tre, because if a man who plays the organ or the hautboy 
were always to touch the same notes, the same sounds would 
always issue forth. 

Sonnet x. 

i( Ben cento volte ho replicato a te 
Questa istessa infallibil verita, 
Che a conto mio, da certo tempo in qua, 
I^a razza de' quattrini si perde. 



122 THE GIULI TRE, 

Tu non ostante vicni intorno a mc 
Con insoftribile importunita, 
E per quei maledetti Giuli Tre 
Mi perseguiti senza carita. 

Forse in dispcrazion ridur mi vuo', 

Ond' io m'appichi, e vuoi vedermi in giu 

Pender col laccio al collo ? Oh questo no. 

Bisolverommi a non pagarti piu, 

E in guisa tal te disperar fard, 

E vo' piuttosto che ti appichi tu." 

I've said for ever, and again I say, 
And it's a truth as plain as truth can be, 
That from a certain period to this day, 
Pence are a family quite extinct with me. 
And yet you still pursue me, and waylay, 
With your insufferable importunity, 
And for those everlasting Giuli Tre 
Haunt me without remorse or decency. 

Perhaps you think that you'll torment me so, 
You'll make me hang myself? You wish to say 
You saw me sus. per coll. — No, Giuli, no. 
The fact is, I'll determine not to pay ; 
And drive you, Giuli, to a state so low, 
That you shall hang yourself, and I be gay. 

Son. xiii. — The poet does not know whether there is 'a 
plurality of worlds, whether the moon is inhabited, &c. He is 
inclined to doubt whether there can be a people who had not 
Adam for their father. But if there is, he longs to go up there 
and live among them. Nevertheless, he fears it would be of no 
avail, as his Creditor would get Father Daniel to show him the 
way, and come after him.* 

Son. xxxi. — When an act has been very often repeated, he 
says that the organs perform it of their own accord, without any 
attention on the part of the will. Thus mules go home to the 
stable, and parrots bid one good morning ; and thus, he says, 
the Creditor has a habit of asking him for the Giuli Tre, and he 
has a habit of answering, " I haven't got 'em." 

Sonnet xxxv. 

" Mai 1' uom felice in vita sua non fu. 
Eanciullo un guardo sol trcmar lo fa ; 
Quindi trapassa La piu fresca eta 
Intento allc bell' arti e alle virtu. 

* Father Daniel is author of a work entitled Travels through the World 

, of Des Cartes, 



THE GIULI TRE. 123 

Poi nel fiero bollor di gioventu 

Or <T amore or di sdegno ardendo va ; 

Di qua malanni, e cancheri di la, 

E guai cogli anni crescon sempre piu. 

Alfin vengono i debit! ; e allor si 
Che piu speme di ben allof non v'e, 
E anch' io la vita mia trassi cosi : 
E il debito fatal de' Giuli Tre 
Ora ai malanni che passai fin qui 
Solennemente il compimento die." 

No : none are happy in this best of spheres. 

Lo : when a child, we tremble at a look : 

Our freshest age is wither'd o'er a book ; 

The fine arts bite us, and great characters. 

Then we go boiling with our youthful peers- 

In love and hate, in riot and rebuke ; 

By hook misfortune has us, or by crook, 

And griefs and gouts come thick'ning with one's years. 

In fine, we've debts : — and when we've debts, no ray 

Of hope remains to warm us to repose. 

Thus has my own life pass'd from day to day ; 

And now, by way of climax though not close 

The fatal debit of the Giuli Tre 

Fills up the solemn measure of my woes. 

Son. xli. — He says, that as the sun with his genial energy 
strikes into the heart of the mountains of Golconda and Peru, 
and hardens substances there into gold and gems, so the hot 
activity of his Creditor has hardened the poet's heart, till at 
length it has produced that hard, golden, and adamantine No ! 
which has rendered the Giuli Tre precious. 

Son. xliv. — He says, that he was never yet bound to the con- 
jugal yoke, — a yoke which is as pleasant to those who have it 
not, as it is disagreeable to those who have : but that if he were 
married, his children would certainly resemble the proprietor of 
the Giuli Tre, and that he should see Creditor-kins, or little 
Creditors, all about him ; — Or editor elli. 

Son. lxxii. — If a man has a little tumour or scratch on his 
leg or arm, and is always impatiently touching it, the little wound 
will become a great one. So, he says, it is with his debt of the 
Giuli Tre. The debt, he allows, is in itself no very great thing, 
but the intolerable importunity of his Creditor, — 

Considerabilissimo lo fa, — 
Makes it a very considerable on©. 



124 THE GIULI TRE. 

Son. lxxviii. — As various climates and countries give rise to 
a variety of characters among mankind, — as the Assyrian and 
Persian has been accounted luxurious, the Thracian fierce, and 
the Koman was once upon a time bold and magnanimous, so he 
suspects that the climate in which he lives must be eminent for 
producing hard Creditors. 

Son. lxxix. — He wishes that some logician, who understands 
the art of persuading people, would be charitable enough to 
suggest to him some syllogism or other form of argument, which 
may enable him to prove to his Creditor the impossibility of paying 
money when a man has not got it. 

Son. lxxxix. — Philosophers maintain, he says, that if two 
bodies stand apart from each other, and are distinct, it is impos- 
sible they can both stand in the same place. Otherwise one 
body also might be in several places at once. He therefore 
wonders how it is, that his Creditor is to be found here and there 
and everywhere. 

Son. xcvi. — He tells us, that his Creditor is fond of accosting 
him on physical subjects, and wishes to know the nature of 
lightning, of the winds, colours, &c, and whether the system 
of Tycho Brahe is better than that of Pythagoras. The poet 
answers that it is impossible to get at the secrets of Nature ; and 
that all that he knows upon earth is, that a man is perpetually 
asking him for Tre Giuli, and he has not got them-. 

Sonnet xcviii. 

" Non poche volte ho inteso dir da chi 
E Galeno ed Ippocrate studio 
Che vi sono fra l'anno alcuni di, 
Ne' quali cavar sangue non si pud. 
Se ragione vi sia di far cosi, 
Se'l vedano i Dottori, io non lo so ; 
E luogo non mi par questo ch'e qui 
])i dire il mio parer sopra di cid. 

So ben che il Creditor de' Giuli Tre 

Tanti riguardi e scrupoli non ha, 

Ne osserva queste regole con me ; 

Ch'anzi ogni giorno procurando va 

Da me trarrc il dcnar, ch'e un non so che 

Ch' ha col sangue una qualche affinita." 

Often and often have I understood 
From Galen's readers and Hippocrates's, 
That there arc certain seasons in diseases 
In which the patient oughtn't to lose blood. 



THE GIULI TRE. 125 

Whether the reason that they give be good, 
Or doctors square their practice to the thesis, 
I know not ; nor is this the best of places 
For arguing on that matter, as I could. 

All that I know is this, — that Giuli Tre 
Has no such scruple or regard with me, 
Nor holds the rule himself : for every day 
He does his best, and that most horribly, 
To make me lose my cash ; which, I must say, 
Has with one's blood some strange affinity. 

Son. ci. — The poet alludes to the account of words freezing 
at the Pole ; and says, that if he were there with his Creditor, 
and a thaw were to take place, nothing would be heard around 
them but a voice calling for the Giuli Tre. 

Sonnet cxiii. 

" Si mostra il Creditor spesso con me 
Piacevole ed affabile cosi, 
Come fra amici suol farsi ogni di, 
E par che piu non pensi a' Giuli Tre ; 
E solo vuol sapcr, se il Prusso Ee 
Libero Praga, e di Boemia usci ; \ 
Se Tarmata naval da Brest parti ; 
Se Annover prese il marescial d'Etre. 

E poiche da lontano la piglio, 

A poco a poco al quia calando va, 

E dice, — i Ebben, quando i Tre Giuli avro ? ' 

Cosi talor col sorcio il gatto fa ; 

Ci ruzza, e scherza, e l'intrattiene un po', 

E la fatal graffiata alfin gli da." 

My Creditor seems often in a way 
Extremely pleasant with me, and polite ; 
Just like a friend: — you'd fancy, at first sight, 
He thought no longer of the Giuli Tre. 
All that he wants to know is, what they say 
Of Erederick now ; whether his guess was right 
About the sailing of the Erench that night ; 
Or, What's the news of Hanover and D'Estrees. 

But start from whence he may, he comes as truly, 
By little and little, to his ancient pass, 
And says, "Well — when am I to have the Giuli ?" 
'Tis the cat's way. She takes her mouse, alas ! 
And having purred, and eyed, and tapp'd him duly, 
Gives him at length the fatal coup de grace. 



126 THE GIULI TRE, 

Sonnet cxxir. 

" Oh quanto scioccamentc vaneggio, 
Chi Arnaldo, e Lullo, ed il Geber scgui, 
E Javoro nascosto e notte e di, 
Ed i mctalli trasformar pensd : 
E intorno ad un crocciuol folic sudd, 
In cui mercuri, e solfi, c sali uni, 
Ne finalmente mai gli riusci 
Coll'arte oprar cid che natura opro. 

Ma oh ! perch e si bell'arte in noi non e ! 
Perche all'uom d'imitar victato fu 
I bei lavori che natura fe ! 
Studiar vorrei la chimica virtu, 
E fatto il capital dc' Giuli Tre, 
Rompere il vaso, e non pensarvi piu." 

Oh, with what folly did they toil in vain, . 
Who thought old Arnald, Lully, or Geber wise, 
And night and day labour'd with anxious eyes 
To turn their metals into golden grain ! 
How did their pots and they perspire again 
Over their sulphurs, salts, and mercuries, 
And never, after all, could see their prize, 
Or do what Nature does, and with no pain ! 

Yet oh, good heavens ! why, why, dear Nature, say, 
This lovely art — why must it be despis'd ? 
Why mayn't we follow this thy noblest way ? 
I 'd work myself; and having realiz'd, 
Great heavens ! a capital of Giuli Tre, 
Break up my tools, content and aggrandiz'd. 

Son. cxxiv. — He supposes that there was no such Creditor as 
his in the time of David, because in the imprecations that are 
accumulated in the hundred and eighteenth psalm, there is no 
mention of such a person. 

Son. cxxvii. — His Creditor, he tells us, disputed with him 
one day, for argument's sake, on the immortality of the soul ; and 
that the great difficulty he started was, how anything that had a 
beginning could be without an end. Upon which the poet asks 
him, whether he did not begin one day asking him for the Giuli 
Tre, and whether he has left off ever since. 

Son. exxviii. — He says that as Languedoc is still so called 
from the use of the affirmative particle oc in that quarter, as 
writers in other parts of France used to be called writers of oui, 
and as Italy is denominated the lovely land of si, so his own 
language, from his constant habit of using the negative particle 



THE GIULI TRE. 127 

to the Creditor of the Guili Tre, ought to be called the language 
of no. 

Son. cxxxiv. — He informs us, that his Creditor has lately 
taken to learning French ; and conjectures that finding he 
has hitherto asked for the Giuli Tre to no purpose in his own 
language, he wishes to try the efficacy of the French way of 
dunning. 

Sonnet cxl. 

" Armato tutto il Creditor non gia 
Di quell'armi che Achille o Enea vesti, 
Onde di tanta poi mortalita 
La Frigia run, l'altro l'ltalia empi ; 
Ne di quelle onde poscia in altra eta 
D'estinti corpi Orlando il suol copri : 
Ma di durezza e d'importunita 
E d'aspri modi araaato ei m'assali. 

Ed improvviso in contro mi lancio 

La riehiesta mortal di Giuli Tre ; 

Io mi schermisco, indi gii scaglio un No : 

Seguia la pugna ed infieria; ma il pie 

Da lui volgendo alfin ratto men yd, 

E vincitor la fuga sol mi fe'." 

My Creditor has no such arms, as he 

Whom Homer trumpets, or whom Virgil sings, 

Arms which dismiss'd so many souls in strings 

From warlike Ilium and from Italy. 

Nor has he those of later memory, 

With which Orlando did such heaps of things ; 

But with hard hints, and constant botherings, 

And such rough ways, — with these he warreth me. 

And suddenly he launcheth at me, lo ! 
His terrible demand, the Giuli Tre ; 
I draw me back, and thrust him with a No ! 
Then glows the fierce resentment of the fray, 
Till turning round, I scamper from the foe ; 
The only way, I find, to gain the day. 

Son. cxlii. — The first time the seaman hears the horrible 
crashing of the tempest, and sees the fierce and cruel rising of 
the sea, he turns pale, and loses both his courage and his voice ; 
hut if he lives long enough to grow grey in his employment, he 
sits gaily at the stern, and sings to the accompaniment of the 
winds. So it is with the poet. His Creditor's perpetual song 
of the Giuli Tre frightened him at first ; but now that his ears 



128 THE GIULI TPJ0, 



lent 



have grown used to it, he turns it into a musical accompaniment 
like the billows, and goes singing to the sound. 

Son. cxlviii. — A friend takes him to see the antiquities in the 
Capitol, but he is put to flight by the sight of a statue resembling 
his Creditor. 

Son. clxxxv. — He marks out to a friend the fatal place where 
his Creditor lent him the Guilt Tre, showing how he drew out 
and opened his purse, and how he counted out to him the Giuli 
with a coy and shrinking hand. He further shows, how it was 
not a pace distant from this spot that the Creditor began to ask 
him for the Giuli : and finishes with proposing to purify the place 
with lustral water, and exorcise its evil genius. 

Son. clxxxix. — He laments that happy age of the world, in 
which there was a community of goods ; and says that the avidity 
of individuals and the invention of meum and tuum have brought 
an immense number of evils among mankind, his part of which 
he suffers by reason of the Giuli Tre. 

Son. cc. — Apollo makes his appearance, and rebukes the poet 
for wasting his time, advising him to sing of things that are 
worthy of immortality. Upon which the poet stops short in a 
song he was chanting upon his usual subject, and bids good-night 
for ever to his Creditor and the Giuli Tre. 

Not a word of payment. 



( 129 ) 



A FEW EEMAEKS ON THE BABE VICE 
CALLED LYING ; 

OR, 

AN APPEAL TO THE MODESTY OF ANTI-BALLOTMEN. 

IMPOSSIBILITY OP FINDING A LIAR IN ENGLAND — LYING, NEVERTHELESS, 
ALLOWED AND ORGANIZED AS A MUTUAL ACCOMMODATION, EXCEPT 

IN THE CASE OP YOTERS AT ELECTIONS REASON OP THIS, A WISH TO 

HAYE ALL THE LIES ON ONE SIDE THE RIGHT OF LYING ARROGATED 

BY THE RICH AS A PRIVILEGE — VINDICATION, NEVERTHELESS, OF THE 

RICH AS HUMAN BEINGS SOCIAL ROOT OF APPARENTLY UNSOCIAL 

FEELINGS — CONVENTIONAL LIARS NOT LIARS OUT OF THE PALE OF 

CONVENTIONALITY FALSEHOOD SOMETIMES TOLD FOR THE SAKE OF 

TRUTH AND GOOD — FINAL APPEAL TO THE CONSCIENCES OF ANTI- 
BALLOTMEN. 

The great argument against the Ballot is, that it teaches people 
duplicity, — that the elector will promise his vote to one man, and 
give it to another. In short, that he will lie. Lying is a horrid 
vice, — im-English. It must not be suffered to pollute our shores. 
People lie in France. They lie in Italy. They lie in Spain and 
Portugal. They lie in Africa, in Asia, and America. But in 
England, who ever heard of such a thing ? 

" What is lying ? " says the English conrtier. 

" Can't say indeed, sir," says the footman. 

" Nor I," says the government spy. 

" Never heard of it," says the tradesman. 

" Never borough-mongered with it," says the peer. 

" Never bribed with it," says the member of parliament. 

" Never subscribed the 39 articles with it," says the collegian. 

" Never pretended to a call with it," says the clergyman. 

" Never nolo-episcoparVd with it," says the bishop. 

" Never played a ruse de guerre with it," says the general. 

" Never told it to a woman," says the man of gallantry. 

" Never argued for it," says the barrister. 

" Never sent in a medicine w T ith it," says the apothecary. 

" Never jockeyed with it," says the turf -man. 

" Never dealt with it," says the man at Crockford's. 

" Never wrote great A with it," says the underwriter. 

9 



130 A FEW EEMARKS ON THE RARE VICE CALLED LYING. 

" Never took in the custom-house with it," says the captain. 

" Never doctor' d my port with it," says the wine-merchant. 

" Never praised or condemned with it," says the critic. 

" Never concealed a motive with it," saysj:he partisan. 

" Never puff'd with it," says the bookseML . 

" Nor I," says the manager. V^ 

" Nor I," says the auctioneer. -—^ 

" Nor I," says the quack-doctor. ^ 

" Never used it in my bread," says the baker. 

" Nor I in a bill," says the tailor. ^ 

" Nor I in a measure," says the coalman. 

" Can't conceive how anybody ever thought of it," says the innkeeper. 

" Never made an excuse with it," says the fine lady. 

" Nor I," says the lady's-maid. 

" Nor I," says the milliner. 

" Am a horrible sinner, but never went so far as that," says the 

method ist. 
" Never uttered one to my wife, pretty jealous soul," says the husband. 
" Nor I to my husband, poor man," says the wife. 
[ " Nor I to my mother," says the little boy. 
" Nor I in one of my speeches," says the king. 
" Nor I in mine," says the minister. 
" N or I at a foreign court," says the diplomatist. 
" Should never forgive myself such a thing," says the pickpocket. 
" Couldn't live under it," says the beggar. 

" Never saved myself from starvation by it," says the Irishman. 
" Nor I got a bawbee," says the Scotchman. 
" Nor I a penny," says all England. 

spirits of Lucian, of Rabelais, of Moliere, of Henry Fielding, 
of Sterne, — look down upon boron ghmongers and their anti- 
ballot men, in the shopkeeping nation of England, and in the 
nineteenth century, protesting against the horrible innovation of 
encouraging the bribed and misrepresented to say one thing in 
self-defence, and intend another I 

Lying is the commonest and most conventional of all the 
vices. It pervades, more or less, every class of the community, 
and is fancied to be so necessary to the carrying on of human 
affairs, that the practice is tacitly agreed upon ; nay, in other 
terms, openly avowed. In the monarch, it is king-craft. In the 
statesman, expediency. In the churchman, mental reservation. 
In the lawyer, the interest of his client. In the merchant, manu- 
facturer, and shopkeeper, secrets of trade. It was the opinion of 
King James, that without the art of lying, a king was not worthy 
to reign. This was his boasted " king-craft,'' which brought his 
son to the block; for if poor Charles was a "martyr," it was 
certainly not to the spirit of truth. Lord Bacon was of opinion 



A FEW REMARKS ON THE RARE VICE CALLED LYING. 131 

that lying, like alloy in metals, was a debasement, but good for 
the working. It worked him, great as he was, into a little and 
ruined man. Pleasant Sir Henry Wotton (himself an ambassador) 
defined an ambassador to be, " An honest man sent to lie abroad 
fojrthe good of his country." Paley openly defends the " mental 
reservation" of the churchman, — of the subscriber to the thirty- 
nine articles, &c. ; and his is the great text-book of the universities. 
If -you go into a shop for any article, you know very well that you 
cannot be secure of having it genuine ; nor do you expect the 
shopkeeper to tell you the truth. The grocer notoriously sells 
Jamaica coffee for Mocha, the tobacconist his own snuff for 
Latakia and Macubau, the linen-draper cotton for thread, and 
British goods for India. 

Well, granting all this, — says the boroughmonger, : — don't you 
see that it overdoes your argument, and that if we all lie and 
cheat one another at this rate, we in reality do not cheat, and 
that the practice becomes comparatively innocent ? 

Excuse me — we answer — you are cheated, or how could you 
cheat ? and what would be the use of the practice '? You know 
the fact is general, and may often detect it in the particular ; but 
still you are cheated in the gross. And supposing the case to be 
otherwise, or that the practice becomes comparatively innocent 
by its universality (which is to be granted), why not make the 
duplicity charged against the Ballot equally innocent, by the same 
process, and for the same general accommodation? 

If it were understood that the elector had the same right and 
necessity to prevaricate for his convenience, as the candidate has 
to bribe or cajole for his, — if the thing were understood on both 
sides, and the voter's promise came to be of no more account 
than the great man's, or than the pretty things said to the voter's 
wife and children, where would be the harm of it, according to 
your own showing ? or where the greater vice of it, than that 
of the famous " king- craft," or of the minister's " expediency," 
or of the thirty-nine article-man's " mental reservation ?" 

The truth is, that such would and will be the result ; so much 
so, that candidates will at last cease to practise their tricks and 
tell their lies, out of a hopelessness of doing anything with the 
voters. But we will tell the anti-balloter, what the harm will be 
in the meanwhile. The harm will be that lies will no longer be 
told for his sake exclusively ; and this is the w'hole real amount 
of his grievance. His grievance is precisely what the prince's 
is, who likes to have all the " craft" to himself, and not be 



132 A FEW REMAKES ON THE RARE VICE CALLED LYING. 

deceived by his ministers. It is what the minister's is, who 
complains of want of truth in the opposition ; — what the oppo- 
sition's is, when they cry " Oh ! oh ! " against the same things 
which they did when in place ; — w r hat the wholesale dealer's cry 
is against the retail, and the master manufacturer's against the 
workman. The weapons of state and expediency will at length 
be turned against expediency itself, — against pow 7 er and monopoly, 
— and used in behalf of the Many ; and this is what the virtuous 
indignation of' the Few cannot bear. 

But an insidious compliment may be paid to " us youth" of 
the press, — us " philosophic radicals ;" and it may be asked us, 
" What ! do you advocate lying ? You advocate it under any 
circumstances ? You wish a man to say one thing and intend 
another ? Is the above your picture of society and of human 
nature ? We thought you had a better opinion of it ; — were 
believers in the goodness of the human heart, and did not take 
all your fellow- creatures for such a parcel of hypocrites." 

" My dear sir," we answer, "we do not see you, and we 
know not w T ho you may be. We know not whether you are one of 
the greatest liars under the sun, or only a conventional liar, like 
our friends the statesman and the baker (good and true fellows 
perhaps out of the pale of their offices and bakehouses). We are 
also totally ignorant whether you are a man who has a regard for 
truth at the expense of conventionalities. Perhaps you are e 
Perhaps you are even a martyr to those virtues, with the posses- 
sion of which you are pleased to compliment ourselves. But this 
we can tell you ; first, that if you were the greatest liar that ever 
breathed, and ourselves were lovers of the truth to an extent of 
which you have no conception, and if you w r ere to come to us for 
help against a murderer, or a bailiff, or a tax-gatherer, or a lying 
boroughmonger, w-e should make no scruple to tell a lie for your 
sake ; and we can tell you, second J v, that our above picture of 
society, and our opinion of human i future, are tw r o very different 
things ; because we believe the vices of society to result entirely 
from its imperfect knowledge, education, and comfort ; whereas 
we believe human nature to be capable of all good and true 
things, and to be ever advancing in them, the Ballot itself not- 
withstanding ; for the very worst of the Ballot is, that it 
exchanges a lie for the sake of an individual, into a lie for the 
sake of the country ; and the best of it is, that it will ultimately 
do away the necessity of either. With the Ballot must come 
extended suffrage (that is what you are afraid of). From ex- 



1 



A FEW KEMARKS ON THE RARE VICE CALLED LYING. 133 



tended suffrage must come Universal Suffrage. And from 
Universal Suffrage must come universal better treatment of man 
by his fellows ; — universal wiser treatment ; — universal comforts ; 
— food for all, fire and clothing for all ; education for all, 
monopolies for none ; — hence no necessity for lying ; which is 
only the resource of the unequally treated against those whose 
lies, in pretending a right so to treat them, are far greater and 
more vicious. 

love of truth ! believer in all good and beautiful things ! 
believer even in one's self, and therefore believer in others, and 
such as are far better than one's self ! putter of security into the 
heart, of solidity into the ground we tread upon, of loveliness 
into the flowers, of hope into the stars ! retainer of youth in age, 
and of comfort in adversity ! bringer of tears into the eyes that 
look upon these imperfect words, to think how large and longing 
the mind of man is, compared with his frail virtues aad his 
transitory power, and what mornings of light and abundance thou 
hast in store, nevertheless, for the whole human race, preparing 
to ripen for them in accordance with their belief in its possibility, 
and their resolution to work for it in loving trust ! Oh ! shall 
they be thought guilty of deserting thee, because, out of the very 
love of truth they feel themselves bound to proclaim to what 
extent it does not exist ? because, out of the very love of truth, 
they will not suffer those who care nothing for it to pretend to a 
religious zeal in its behalf, when the lie is to be turned against 
themselves ? 

One of the bitterest sights in the world to a lover of equal 
dealing, is the selfish and conceited arrogance ivith which the 
rich demand virtues on the side of the poor, which they do not 
exercise themselves. The rich man lies through his lawyer — 
through his dependant — through his footman ; lies when he 
makes "civil speeches;'" — lies when he subscribes articles; — 
lies when he goes to be married (vide Marriage Service) ; — lies 
when he takes " the oaths and his seat;" — but that the poor 
man should lie ! that he should give a false promise ! — that he 
should risk the direful, and unheard-of, and unparliamentary 
crime of political perjury ! Oh, it is not to be thought of! Think 
of the example — think of the want of principle — think of the 
harm done to the poor man's " own mind" — to his sense of right 
and wrong — to his eternal salvation. Nay, not that either : — 
they have seldom the immodesty to go as far as that. But what 
enormous want of modesty to go so far as they do ! Why should 



134 A FEW REMARKS ON THE RARE VICE CALLED LYING. 

the poor man be expected to have scruples which the rich laugh 
at ? Why deny him weapons which they make use of against 
himself? — in this respect, as in too many others, resembling their 
" noble" feudal ancestors, who had the nobleness to fight in 
armour, while the common soldier was allowed none. 

Yet let us not be supposed to think ill of the rich or of any- 
body, beyond the warrant of humanity — beyond all modesty of 
our own, or sense of the frailties which we possess plentifully in 
common with our fellow-creatures. We think ill, in fact, of no 
one, in the only bad and deplorable sense of the term, — that 
sense which would make him out to be something wicked from 
sheer preference of evil to good, or of harm to others without 
impulse or excuse. *We are of opinion, that all classes and 
descriptions of men are modified as they are by circumstances ; 
and instead of lamenting that there is so much vice during their 
advancement towards a wiser condition, we rejoice that there is 
so much virtue, — so much indelible and hopeful good. Nay, we 
can see a certain large and gallant healthiness of social constitu- 
tion in man, in the very circumstance of vice's taking so gay or 
indifferent an air during what it supposes to be a necessity, or a 
condition of human nature ; and the gayer it is, in some respects, 
the better ; not only because of its having the less uneasy or 
mean conscience, but because it is the less given to cant and 
hypocrisy, and is ashamed of putting on a grave face of exaction 
upon others. The very worst of all vices (cruelty excepted) — 
that pride w T hich seems to make the rich and prosperous hold 
their fellow- creatures in such slight regard, — is often traceable 
only to a perverted sense of that identical importance in their 
eyes, which is grounded in a social feeling, and which, under a 
wiser education, would make them proud of sympathizing with 
the humblest. Those courtiers — those Whigs and Tories — those 
lawyers — those tradesmen we have been talking of, — how shocked 
would not many, perhaps most of them be, and what a right 
w r ould they not have to resent it, — if you treated them as liars 
beyond the pale of their conventional duplicity ? Take the grocer 
or the linendraper from behind his counter — apply to him in any 
concern but that of his shop, — and most likely he is as great a 
truth-teller as the rest. There is nothing you may not take his 
word for. And then sec what affections all these people have ; 
what lovers they arc of their families ; what anxious providers 
for their children; what "good fellows" as friends and helpers ; 
and what a fool and coxcomb you ought to consider yourself, if 



A FEW REMARKS ON THE RARE VICE CALLED LYING, 135 

you dared to set yourself up, and pretend that you were a bit 
better than any one of them, even though circumstances might 
enable you to be free from some of their errors, — perhaps with 
greater of your own. Falsehood itself is sometimes almost pure 
virtue, — at least it contemplates anything but the ordinary and 
unjust results of falsehood ; as in the case of a jury, who delibe- 
rately tell a lie when, in order to save a man from transportation, 
or a poor child from the jail, they bring in a verdict of Not 
Guilty on the principal charge, knowing him to be otherwise. 
Here the law is violated for the sake of justice, and a lie told for 
the sake of the beautiful truth that we ought to be humane to one 
another. But the law should be changed ?. True : and so should 
all laws be changed which force just feelings upon falsehood in 
self-defence ; — and as the rich advance in their notions of justice, 
and the poor get better fed and taught, all such laws will be 
changed. 

In short, dear anti-Ballot people, whoever you are, and 
granting for the sake of the argument, that all which you say 
about the voter's prevarication will be true (for in innumerable 
instances we deny that it will, and in all it must eventually come 
to nothing in the hopelessness of applying to him), but granting 
for the sake of the argument, that all which you anticipate in 
that respect will come to pass, we have two short things to say 
to you, which appear to us to sum up all that is necessary for 
the refutation of your reasoning : first, that before you have a 
right to ask the voter not to be false to you, you must get rid of 
your own falsehoods, great and small ; and second, that when you 
do get rid of them, you will be such very conscientious men, that 
you will not have the face to ask him to violate his conscience. 



( 136 



CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 

I.— HAIR, FOREHEAD. 



FAULT-FINDING OF THE OLD STYLE OF CRITICISM RIDICULED PAINTING 

WITH THE PEN — UGLINESS OF BEAUTY WITHOUT FEELING — THE HAND 

OF THE POISONER HAIR — UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES IT IS 

ALLOWABLE TO USE ARTIFICIAL HELPS TO BEAUTY — RED AND GOLDEN 
HAIR — HAIR OF LUCRETIA BORGIA — FOREHEAD. 

Criticism, for the most part, is so partial, splenetic, and pedantic, 
and has such little right to speak of what it undertakes to cen- 
sure, that the words " criticism on beauty " sound almost as ill as 
if a man were to announce something unpleasant upon something 
pleasant. 

And, certainly, as criticism, according to its general prac- 
tice, consists in an endeavour to set the art above its betters, 
and to render genius amenable to want of genius (particularly 
in those matters which, by constituting the very essence of 
it, are the least felt by the men of line and rule), so critics 
are bound by their trade to object to the very pleasantest 
things. Delight, not being their business, " puts them out." 
The first reviewer was Momus, who found fault with the Goddess 
of Beauty.* 

We have sometimes fancied a review set up by this anti- 
divinity in heaven. It would appear, by late discoveries in the 
history of the globe, that, as one species of production has become 
extinct, so new ones may have come into being. Now, imagine 
the gods occasionally putting forth some new work, which is 

* Since the remarks in this exordium were written, periodical criticism 
has for the most part wholly changed its character. Instead of fault- 
finding, it has become beauty-finding. This extreme, of course, has also 
its wrong side ; but, upon the whole, is unquestionably on the higher side 
of the art. There are few poor books, however indulgently treated, that 
will not soon die ; but the very best books sometimes require aid, because 
of their depth and originality. It is observable that the indulgent spirit of 
criticism has increased with its profundity. 



CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 187 

criticised in the Olympian Review. Chloris, the goddess of 
flowers, for instance, makes a sweetbrier : — 

" The Sweetbrier, a new bush, by Chloris, Goddess of Flowers. 
Kain and Sun, 4104. 

" This is another hasty production of a lady, whom we are 
anxious to meet with a more satisfied face. Really, we must say, 
that she tires us. The other day we had the pink. It is not 
more than a year ago that she flamed upon us with the hearts- 
ease (pretty names these) ; then we were all to be sunk into a bed 
of luxury and red leaves by the rose ; and now, ecce iterum Rosina, 
comes a new edition of the same effeminate production, altered, 
but not amended, and made careless, confused, and full of harsh 
points. These the fair author, we suppose, takes for a dashing 
variety ! Why does she not consult her friends ? Why must we 
be forced to think that she mistakes her talents, and that she had 
better confine herself to the production of daisies and dande- 
lions ? Even the rose, which has been so much cried up in 
certain quarters, was not original. It was clearly suggested by 
that useful production of an orthodox friend of ours, — the cabbage ; 
which has occasioned it to be pretty generally called the cabbage- 
rose. The sweetbrier, therefore, is imitation upon imitation, 
crambe (literally) bis cocta;* a thing not to be endured. To say 
the truth, which we wish to do with great tenderness, considering 
the author's sex, this sweetbrier -bush is but a rifacimento of the 
rose-bush. The only difference is, that everything is done on a 
pettier scale, the flowers hastily turned out, and a superabundance 
of those startling points added, which so annoyed us in the rose 
yclept moss ; for there is no end to these pretty creatures the roses. 
Let us see. There is the cabbage-rose, the moss-rose, the musk- 
rose, the damask-rose, the hundred-leaved-rose, the yellow-rose, 
and earth only knows how T many more. Surely these were 
enough, in all conscience. Most of them rank little above extem- 
pore effusions, and were hardly worth the gathering ; but after so 
much trifling, to go and alter the style of a commonplace in a 
spirit of mere undoing and embrouillement, and then palm it upon 
us for something free, forsooth, and original, is a desperate evi- 
dence of falling off! We cannot consent to take mere wildness 
for invention ; a hasty and tangled piece of business, for a regular 
work of art. What is called nature will never do. Nature is 

* Cabbage twice cooked. 



138 CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 

unnatural. The best production by far of the fair author, was 
the auricula, one of those beautiful and regular pieces of compo- 
sition, the right proportions of which are ascertained, and redu- 
cible to measurement. But tempora mutantur. Our fair florist 
has perhaps got into bad company. We have heard some talk 
about zephyrs, bees, wild birds, and such worshipful society. 
Cannot this ingenious person be content with the hot-house 
invented by Yulcan and Co. without gadding abroad in this dis- 
reputable manner ? We have heard that she speaks with dis- 
respect of ourselves ; but we need not assure the reader that this 
can have no weight with an honest critic. By-the-by, why this 
brier is called sweet, we must unaffectedly and most sincerely say, 
is beyond our perceptions." 

We were about to give a specimen of another article, by the 
same reviewer, on the subject of our present paper : — " Woman, 
being a companion to Man," &c. But the tone of it would be 
intolerable. We shall therefore proceed with a more becoming 
and grateful criticism, such as the contemplation of the subject 
naturally produces. Pygmalion, who can wonder (no artist 
surely) that thou didst fall in love with the work of thine own 
hands! Titian! Kaphael ! Apelles ! We could 
almost fancy this sheet of paper to be one of your tablets, our 
desk an easel, our pen a painting-brush ; so impossible does it 
seem that the beauty we are about to paint should not inspire us 
with a gusto equal to your own ! 

" Come, then, the colours and the ground prepare." 

This ink- stand is our palette. We handle our pen as if there 
were the richest bit of colour in the world at the end of it. The 
reds and whites look as if we could eat them. Look at that 
pearly tip at the end of the ear. The very shade of ifc has a 
glow. What a light on the forehead ! What a moisture on the 
lip ! What a soul, twenty fathom deep, in the eyes ! Look at 
us, madam, if you please. The eye right on ours. The fore- 
head a little more inclined. Good. What an expression ! 
Raphael, — it is clear to me that you had not the feeling we have : 
for you could paint such a portrait, and wc cannot. We cannot 
paint after the life. Titian, how could you contrive it ? Apelles, 
may we trouble you to explain yourself? It is lucky for the 
poets that their mistresses are not obliged to sit to them. They 
would never write a line. Even a prose-writer is baffled. How 



CKITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY, 139 

Kaphael managed in the Palazzo Chigi, — how Sacchini contrived, 
when he wrote his Rinaldo and Arrnida, with Armida hy his 
side, — is beyond our comprehension. We can call to mind, but 
we cannot copy. Fair presence, avaunt ! We conjure you out 
of our study, as one of our brother writers, in an agony of article, 
might hand away his bride, the printer haying sent to him for 
copy. Come forth, our tablets. Stand us inste'ad of more dis- 
tracting suggestions, our memorandums. 

It has been justly observed, that heroines are best painted in 
general terms, as in Paradise Lost, — 

" Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye," &c, 

or by some striking instance of the effects of their beauty, as in 
Homer, where old age itself is astonished at the sight of Helen, 
and does not wonder that Paris has brought a war on his country 
for her sake. Particular description divides the opinion of the 
readers, and may offend some of them. The most elaborate por- 
trait of the heroine of Italian romance could say nothing for her, 
compared with the distractions that she caused to so many cham- 
pions, and the millions that besieged her in Albracca. 

" Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp, 
When Agrican with all his northern powers 
Besieged Albracca, as romances tell, 
The city of Gallaphrone, from whence to win 
The fairest of her sex, Angelica." 

Even Apuleius, a very " particular fellow," who is an hour in 
describing a chambermaid, enters into no details respecting 
Psyche. It was enough that the people worshipped her. 

The case is different when a writer describes a real person, or 
chooses to acquaint us with his particular taste. In the Dream 
of Chaucer is an admirable portrait of a woman, supposed to be 
that of Blanche, Duchess of John of Gaunt. Anacreon gives us 
a whole-length of his mistress, in colours as fresh as if they were 
painted yesterday. The blue eye is moist in its sparkling ; the 
cheek, which he compares to milk with roses in it, is young for 
ever. Oh, Titian, even thy colours are dry compared with those 
of poetry ! 

It happens luckily for us, on the present occasion, that we 
can reconcile particulars with generals. The truth is, we have 
no particular taste. We only demand that a woman should be 
womanly ; which is not being exclusive. We think also that any- 



140 CKITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 

body who wishes to look amiable, should be so. The detail, with 
us, depends on a sentiment. For instance, we used to think we 
never could tolerate flaxen hair; yet meeting one day with a 
lovely face that had flaxen locks about it, we thought for a good 

while after, that flaxen was your only wear. Harriet 

made us take to black ; and yet, if it had not been for a combi- 
nation of dark browns, we should the other night have been con- 
verted to the superiority of light brown by Harriet D . 

Upon the whole, the dark browns, chestnuts, &c. have it with us ; 
but this is because the greatest number of kind eyes that we have 
met, have looked from under locks of that colour. We find 
beauty itself a very poor thing unless beautified by sentiment. 
The reader may take the confession as he pleases, either as an 
instance of abundance of sentiment on our part, or as an evidence 
of want of proper ardour and impartiality ; but we cannot (and 
that is the plain truth) think the most beautiful creature beautiful, 
or be at all affected by her, or long to sit next her, or go to a 
theatre with her, or listen to a concert with her, or walk in a field 
or a forest with her, or call her by her Christian name, or ask 
her if she likes poetry, or tie (with any satisfaction) her gown for 
her, or be asked whether we admire her shoe, or take her arm 
even into a dining-room, or kiss her at Christmas, or on April- 
fool day, or on May-day, or on any other day, or dream of her, 
or wake thinking of her, or feel a want in the room when she has 
gone, or a pleasure the more when she appears, — unless she has 
a heart as well as a face, and is a proper good-tempered, natural, 
sincere, honest girl, who has a love for other people and other 
things, apart from self-reference and the wish to be admired. 
Her face would pall upon us in the course of a week, or even 
become disagreeable. We should prefer an enamelled teacup j 
for we should expect nothing from it. We remember the impres- 
sion made on us by a female plaster-cast hand, sold in the shops 
as a model. It is beautifully turned, though we thought it some- 
what too plump and well-fed. The fingers, however, are deli- 
cately tapered : the outline flowing and graceful. We fancied it 
to have belonged to some jovial beauty, a little too fat and festive, 
but laughing withal, and as full of good-nature. The possessor 
told us it was the hand of Madame Brinvilliers, the famous 
poisoner. The word was no sooner spoken, than we shrank from 
it as if it had been a toad. It was now literally hideous ; the fat 
seemed sweltering and full of poison. The beauty added to the 
deformity. You resented the grace : you shrank from the look of 



CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 141 

smoothness, as from a snake. This woman went to the scaffold 
with as much indifference as she distributed her poisons. The 
character of her mind was insensibility. The strongest of excite- 
ments was to her what a cup of tea is to other people. And such 
is the character, more or less, of all mere beauty. Nature, if one 
may so speak, does not seem to intend it to be beautiful. It 
looks as if it were created in order to show what a nothing the 
formal part of beauty is, without the spirit of it. We have been 
so used to it with reference to considerations of this kind, that 
we have met with women generally pronounced beautiful, and 
spoken of with transport, who took a sort of ghastly and witch- 
like aspect in our eyes, as if they had been things walking the 
earth without a soul, or with some evil intention. The woman 
who supped with the Goule in the Arabian Nights, must have 
been a beauty of this species. 

But to come to our portrait. Artists, we believe, like to 
begin with the eyes. We will begin, like Anacreon, with the 
hair. 

Hair should be abundant, soft, flexible, growing in long locks, 
of a colour suitable to the skin, thick in the mass, delicate and 
distinct in the particular. The mode of wearing it should differ. 
Those who have it growing low in the nape of the neck, should 
prefer wearing it in locks hanging down, rather than turned up 
with a comb. The gathering it, however, in that manner is 
delicate and feminine, and suits many. In general, the mode of 
wearing the hair is to be regulated according to the shape of the 
head. Einglets hanging about the forehead suit almost every- 
body. On the other hand, the fashion of parting the hair 
smoothly, and drawing it tight back on either side, is becoming 
to few. It has a look of vanity, instead of simplicity. The face 
must do everything for it, which is asking too much ; especially 
as hair, in its freer state, is the ornament intended for it by 
nature. Hair is to the human aspect, what foliage is to the 
landscape. This analogy is so striking, that it has been com- 
pared to flowers, and even to fruit. The Greek and other poets 
talk of hyacinthine locks, of clustering locks (an image taken from 
grapes), of locks like tendrils. The favourite epithet for a Greek 
beauty was "well-haired;" and the same epithet was applied 
to woods. Apuleius says, that Yenus herself, if she were bald, 
would not be Yenus. So entirely do we agree with him, so much 
do we think that the sentiment of anything beautiful, even where 
the real beauty is wanting, is the best part of it, that we prefer 



142 CBITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 

the help of artificial hair to an ungraceful want of it. We do not 
wish to be deceived. "We should like to know that the hair was 
artificial ; or at least that the wearer was above disguising the 
fact. This would show her worthy of being allowed it. We 
remember, when abroad, a lady of quality, an Englishwoman, 
whose beauty was admired by all Florence ; but never did it 
appear to us so admirable, as when she observed one day, that 
the ringlets that hung from under her cap were not her own. 
Here, thought we, it is not artifice that assists beauty ; it is 
truth. Here is a woman who knows that there is a beauty in 
hair beyond the material of it, or the pride of being thought to 
possess it. wits of Queen Anne's day, see what it is to live 
in an age of sentiment, instead of your mere periwigs, and reds 
and whites ! — The first step in taste is to dislike all artifice ; the 
next is to demand nature in her perfection ; but the best of all is 
to find out the hidden beauty, which is the soul of beauty itself, 
to wit, the sentiment of it. The loveliest hair is nothing, if the 
wearer is incapable of a grace. The finest eyes are not fine, if 
they say nothing. What is the finest harp to us, strung with 
gold, and adorned with a figure of Venus, if it answer with a 
discordant note, and hath no chords in it fit to be wakened ? 
Long live, therefore, say we, lovely natural locks at five-and- 
twenty, and lovely artificial locks, if they must be resorted to, at 
five -and- thirty or forty. Let the harp be new strung, if the 
frame warrant it, and the sounding-board hath a delicate utter- 
ance. A woman of taste should no more scruple to resort to such 
helps at one age, than she would consent to resort to them at an 
age when no such locks exist in nature. Till then, let her not 
cease to help herself to a plentiful supply. The spirit in which 
it is worn gives the right to wear it. Affectation and pretension 
spoil everything : sentiment and simplicity warrant it. Above all 
things cleanliness. This should be the motto of*personal beauty. 
Let a woman keep what hair she has, clean, and she may adorn 
or increase it as she pleases. Oil, for example, is two different 
things, on clean hair and unclean. On the one, it is but an 
aggravation of the dirt : to the other, if not moist enough by 
nature, it may add a reasonable grace. The best, however, is 
undoubtedly that which can most dispense with it. A lover is a 
little startled, when he finds the paper, in which a lock of hair has 
been enclosed, stained and spotted as if it had wrapped a cheese- 
cake. Ladies, when about to give away locks, may as well omit 
the oil that time, and be content with the washing. If they 



CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 143 

argue that it will not look so glossy in those eyes in which they 
desire it to shine most, let them own as much to the favoured 
person, and he will never look at it but their candour shall give it 
a double lustre. 

"Love adds a precious seeing to the eye ;" 

and how much does not sincerity add to love ! One of the 
excuses for oil is the perfume mixed with it. The taste for this 
was carried so far among the ancients, that Anacreon does not 
scruple to wish that the painter of his mistress's portrait could 
convey the odour breathing from her delicate oiled tresses. Even 
this taste seems to have a foundation in nature. A little black- 
eyed relation of ours (often called Molly, from a certain dairy-maid 
turn of hers and our regard for old English customs) has hair 
with a natural scent of spice. 

The poets of antiquity, and the modern ones after them, talk 
much of yellow and golden tresses, tresses like the morn, &c. 
Much curiosity has been evinced respecting the nature of this 
famous poetical hair ; and as much anxiety shown in hoping that 
it was not red. May we venture to say, in behalf of red hair, 
that we are not of those in whose eyes it is so very shocking ? 
Perhaps, as " pity melts the soul to love," there may be some- 
thing of such a feeling in our tenderness for that Pariah of a 
colour. It must be owned that hair of this complexion appears 
never to have been in request ; and yet, to say nothing of the 
general liking of the ancients for all the other shades of yellow 
and gold, a good red-headed commentator might render it a hard 
matter to pronounce, that Theocritus has not given two of his 
beautiful swains hair amounting to a positive fiery. Fire-red is 
the epithet, however it may be understood. 

" Both fiery-tressed heads, both in their bloom." * 

We do not believe the golden hair to have been red ; but this 
we believe, that it was nearer to it than most colours, and that it 
went a good deal beyond what it is sometimes supposed to have 
been, auburn. The word yellow, a convertible term for it, will 
not do for auburn. Auburn is a rare and glorious colour, and we 
suspect will always be more admired by us of the north, where 
the fair complexions that recommended golden hair are as easy to 
be met with, as they are difficult in the south. Both Ovid and 

* "KfKpuj T(x>y tjttjv irvppoTpLxw, d^oj dvdj3oj. — Idyll, vii. 



144 CBITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY, 

Anacreon, the two greatest masters of the ancient world in 
painting external beauty, seemed to have preferred it to golden, 
notwithstanding the popular cry in the other's favour ; unless, 
indeed, the hair they speak of was too dark in its ground for 
auburn. The Latin poet, in his fourteenth love- elegy, speaking 
of tresses which he says Apollo would have envied, and which he 
prefers to those of Venus as Apelles painted her, tells us, that 
they were neither black nor golden, but mixed, as it were, of both. 
And he compares them to cedar on the declivities of Ida, with 
the bark stripped. This implies a dash of tawny. We have 
seen pine-trees in a southern evening sun take a lustrous bur- 
nished aspect between dark and golden, a good deal like what we 
conceive to be the colour he alludes to. Anacreon describes hair 
of a similar beauty. His touch, as usual, is brief and exquisite : — 

" Deepening inwardly, a dun ; 
Sparkling golden, next the sun." * 

Which Ben Jonson has rendered in a line — 

" Gold upon a ground of black." 

Perhaps, the true auburn is something more lustrous throughout, 
and more metallic than this. The cedar with the bark stripped 
looks more like it. At all events, that it is not the golden hair 
of the ancients has been proved in our opinion beyond a doubt by 
a memorandum in our possession, worth a thousand treatises of 
the learned. This is a solitary hair of the famous Lucretia 
Borgia, whom Ariosto has so praised for her virtues, and whom 
the rest of the world is so contented to think a wretch, f It was 
given us by a lamented friend \ who obtained it from a lock of 
her hair preserved in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. On the 
envelope he put a happy motto — 

" And beauty draws us with a single hair." 

If ever hair was golden, it is this. It is not red, it is not yellow, 
it is not auburn : it is golden, and nothing else ; and, though 

* Td fxev tvdoSev, fJteXaivag, 
Td S' tg aicpov, yXucGag. 
f Mr. Roscoe must be excepted, who has come into the field to run a 
tilt for her. We wish his lance may turn out to be the Golden Lance of 
the poet, and overthrow all his opponents. The oreatest scandal in the 
world, is the readiness of the world to believe scandal, 
f Lord Byron. 



CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. i45 

natural- looking too, must have had a surprising appearance in the 
mass. Lucretia, beautiful in every respect, must have looked 
like a vision in a picture, an angel from the sun. Everybody who 
sees it, cries out, and pronounces it the real thing. We must 
confess, after all, we prefer the auburn, as we construe it. It 
forms, we think, a finer shade for the skin ; a richer warmth ; a 
darker lustre. But Lucretia's hair must have been still divine. 
Mr. Landor, w r hom we had the pleasure of becoming acquainted 
with over it, as other acquaintances commence over a bottle, was 
inspired on the occasion with the following verses : — 

" Borgia, thou once wert almost too august 
And high for adoration ; — now, thou'rt dust ! 
All that remains of thee these plaits infold — 
Calm hair, meand'ring with pellucid gold ! " 

The sentiment implied in the last line will be echoed by every 
bosom that has worn a lock of hair next it, or longed to do so. 
Hair is at once the most delicate and lasting of our materials ; 
and survives us, like love. It is so light, so gentle, so escaping 
from the idea of death, that with a lock of hair belonging to a 
child or a friend, we may almost look up to heaven, and compare 
notes with the angelic nature ; may almost say, " I have a piece 
of thee here, not unworthy of thy being now." 

Forehead. — There are fashions in beauty as well as dress. 
In some parts of Africa, no lady can be charming under twenty 
stone : 

" King Chihu put nine queens to death ; 
Convict on Statute, Ivory Teeth" 

In Shakspeare's time, it was the fashion to have high foreheads, 
probably out of compliment to Queen Elizabeth. They were 
thought equally beautiful and indicative of wisdom : and if the 
portraits of the great men of that day are to be trusted, wisdom 
and high foreheads were certainly often found together. Of late 
years, physiognomists have declared for the wisdom of strait and 
compact foreheads, rather than high ones. We must own we 
have seen very silly persons with both. It must be allowed, at 
the same time, that a very retreating forehead is apt to be no 
accompaniment of wit. With regard to high ones, they are often 
confounded with foreheads merely bald ; and baldness, whether 
natural or otherwise, is never handsome ; though in men it some- 

10 



146 CEITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 

times takes a character of simplicity and firmness. According to 
the Greeks, who are reckoned to have been the greatest judges of 
beauty, the high forehead never bore the palm. A certain con- 
ciseness carried it. " A forehead," says Junius, in his Treatise 
on Ancient Art, " should be smooth and even, white, delicate, 
short, and of an open and cheerful character." The Latin is 
briefer.* Ariosto has expressed it in two words, perhaps in one. 

" Di terso avorio era la fronte lieta." — Orlan. Fur. canto vii. 
Terse ivory was her forehead glad. 

A large bare forehead gives a woman a masculine and defying 
look. The word effrontery comes from it. The hair should be 
brought over such a forehead, as vines are trailed over a wall. 



II.— EYES, EYEBROWS, NOSE. 

EYES— EYEBROWS — FROWNING WITHOUT FROWNING EYEBROWS MEETING 

— SHAPE OF HEAD, FACE, EARS, CHEEKS, AND EARRINGS — NOSE — A 
PERPLEXITY TO THE CRITICS— QUESTION OF AQUILINE NOSES — ANGELS 
NEVER PAINTED WITH THEM. 

Eyes. — The finest eyes are those that unite sense and sweetness. 
They should be able to say much and all charmingly. The look 
of sense is proportioned to the depth from which the thought 
seems to issue ; the look of sweetness to an habitual readiness of 
sympathy, an unaffected willingness to please and be pleased. 
We need not be jealous of — 

" Eves affectionate and glad, 
That seem to love whatever they look npon." 

— Gertrude of Wyoming. 

^hey have always a good stock in reserve for their favourites ; 

* "Irons debet esse plana, Candida, tenuis, brevis, pura." — Junius Be 
Plctura Veterum, lib. iii. cap. 9. The whole chapter is very curious and 
abundant on the subject of ancient beauty. Yet it might be rendered a 
good deal more so. A treatise on Hair alone might be collected out of 
Ovid. 



CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 147 

especially if, like those mentioned by the poet, they are con- 
versant with books and nature. Voluptuaries know not what they 
talk about, when they profess not to care for sense in a woman. 
Pedantry is one thing : sense, taste, and apprehensiveness, are 
another. Give us an eye that draws equally from head above 
and. heart beneath ; that is equally full of ideas and feelings, of 
intuition and sensation. If either must predominate, let it be the 
heart. Mere beauty is nothing at any time but a doll, and should 
be packed up and sent to Brobdingnag. The colour of the eye is 
a very secondary matter. Black eyes are thought the brightest, 
blue the most feminine, grey the keenest. It depends entirely on 
the spirit within. We have seen all these colours change charac- 
ters ; though we must own, that when a blue eye looks ungentle, 
it seems more out of character than the extremest contradiction 
expressed by others. The ancients appear to have associated the 
idea of gladness with blue eyes ; which is the colour given to his 
heroine's by the author just quoted. Anacreon attributes a blue 
or a grey eye to his mistress, it is difficult to say which : but he 
adds, that it is tempered with the moist delicacy of the eye of 
Venus. The other look was Minerva's, and required softening. 
It is not easy to distinguish the shades of the various colours 
anciently given to eyes; the blues and greys, sky-blues, sea- 
blues, sea-greys, and even ea£-greys.* But it is clear that the 
expression is everything. The poet demanded this or that colour, 
according as he thought it favourable to the expression of acute - 
ness, majesty, tenderness, or a mixture of all. Black eyes were 
most lauded; doubtless, because in a southern country the 
greatest number of beloved eyes must be of that colour. But on 
the same account of the predominance of black, the abstract taste 
was in favour of lighter eyes and fair complexions. Hair being 
of a great variety of tint, the poet had great licence in wishing or 
feigning on that point. Many a head of hair was exalted into 
gold, that gave slight colour for the pretension ; nor is it to be 
doubted that auburn, and red, and yellow, and sand-colour, and 
brown with the least surface of gold, all took the same illustrious 
epithet on occasion. With regard to eyes, the ancients insisted 

* Ccesio veniam obvius leoni. — Catullus. See glaucus, cceynileus, &c., 
and their Greek correspondents. Xapo7rbc, glad-looking, is also rendered 
in the Latin, blue-eyed : and yet it is often translated by ravus, a word 
which at one time is made to signify blue, and at another something 
approximating to hazel. Ccesins, in like manner, appears to signify both 
grey and blue, and a tinge of green. 



148 CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 

much on one point, which gave rise to many happy expressions. 
This was a certain mixture of pungency with the look of sweet- 
ness. Sometimes they call it severity, sometimes sternness, and 
even acridity, and terror. The usual word w r as gorgon-looking. 
Something of a frown was implied, mixed with a radiant earnest- 
ness. This was commonly spcjfcen of men's eyes. Anacreon, 
giving directions for the portrait of a youth, says — 

*' Mt\av ojxna yopyov egtoj, 
KsKSpacTfievov yaXrjvy." 

Dark and gorgon be his eye, 
Tempered with hilarity. 

A taste of it, however, was sometimes desired in the eyes of the 
ladies. Theagenes, in Heliodorus's Ethiopics, describing his 
mistress Chariclea, tells us, that even when a child, something 
great, and with a divinity in it, shone out of her eyes, and en- 
countered his, as he examined them, w r ith a mixture of the gorgon 
and the alluring.* Perhaps the best word for translating gorgon 
would be fervent: something earnest, fiery, and pressing onward. 
Anacreon, we see, with his usual exquisite taste, allays the fierce- 
ness of the term with the participle " tempered." The nice 
point is, to see that the terror itself be not terrible, but only a 
poignancy brought in to assist the sweetness. It is the salt in 
the tart ; the subtle sting of the essence. It is to the eye intel- 
lectual, what the apple of the eye is to the eye itself, — the dark 
part of it, the core, the innermost look ; the concentration and 
burning-glass of the rays of love. We think, however, that 
Anacreon did better than Heliodorus, when he avoided attributing 
this look to his mistress, and confined it to the other sex. He 
tells us, that she had a look of Minerva as well as Venus ; but it 
was Minerva without the gorgon. There was sense and appre- 
hensiveness, but nothing to alarm. 

Large eyes were admired in Greece, where they still prevail. 
They are the finest of all, when they have the internal look ; 
which is not common. The stag or antelope eye of the orientals 
is beautiful and lamping, but is accused of looking skittish and 
indifferent. " The epithet of stag-eyed," says Lady Wortley 
Montagu, speaking of a Turkish love-song, "pleases me ex- 
tremely ; and I think it a very lively image of the fire and indif- 
ference in his mistress's eyes." We lose in depth of expression, 

* JEtkiop. lib. xi., apuu Junium. 



CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 149 

when we go to inferior animals for comparisons with human 
beauty. Homer calls Juno ox-eyed ; and the epithet suits well 
with the eyes of that goddess, because she may be supposed, 
with all her beauty, to want a certain humanity. Her large eyes 
look at you with a royal indifference. Shakspeare has kissed 
them, and made them human. Speaking of violets, he describes 
them as being — 

" Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes." 

This is shutting up their pride, and subjecting them to the lips of 
love. Large eyes may become more touching under this circum- 
stance than any others, because of the field which the large lids 
give for the veins to wander in, and the trembling amplitude of 
the ball beneath. Little eyes must be good-tempered, or they 
are ruined. They have no other resource. But this will beautify 
them enough. They are made for laughing, and should do their 
duty. In Charles the Second's time, it was the fashion to have 
sleepy, half- shut eyes, sly and meretricious. They took an ex- 
pression, beautiful and warrantable on occasion, and made a 
commonplace of it, and a vice. So little do " men of pleasure " 
understand the business from which they take their title. A good 
warm-hearted poet shall shed more light upon voluptuousness and 
beauty in one verse from his pen, than a thousand rakes can 
arrive at, swimming in claret, and bound on as many voyages of 
discovery. 

In attending to the hair and eyes, we have forgotten the eye- 
brows, and the shape of the head. They shall be despatched 
before we come to the lips ; as the table is cleared before the 
dessert. This is an irreverent simile, nor do we like it ; though 
the pleasure even of eating and drinking, to those who enjoy it 
with temperance, may be traced beyond the palate. The utmost 
refinements on that point are, we allow, wide of the mark on this. 
The idea of beauty, however, is lawfully associated with that of 
cherries and peaches ; as Eve set forth the dessert in Paradise. 

Eyebrows. — Eyebrows used to obtain more applause than 
they do. Shakspeare seems to jest upon this eminence, when he 
speaks of a lover 

" Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad 
Made to his mistress' eyebrow." 

Marot mentions a poem on an eyebrow, which was the talk of the 



150 CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY, 

court of Frauds the First.* The taste of the Greeks ou this 
poiut was remarkable. They admired eyebrows that almost met. 
It depends upou the character of the rest of the face. Meeting 
eyebrows may give a seuse aud animation to looks that might 
otherwise be too feminine. They have certainly not a foolish 
look. Anacreon's mistress has them : — 

" Taking care her eyebrows be 
Not apart, nor mingled neither, 
But as hers are, stol'n together ; 
Met by stealth, yet leaving too 
O'er the eyes their darkest hue." 

In the Idyl of Theocritus before mentioned, one of the speakers 
values himself upon the effect his beauty has had on a girl with 
joined eyebrows. 

j" Kfyfl EK TLJ) aVTptp GVVO(pQVQ KOpCL £%#££ idoiOa, 

Tag SafiaXag 7rapeXevvra, icaXbv kclXov ?)fxeg 6(pa(jKtv' 
Ov fiev ovde Xoyiov ticpiOrjv dwo rbv 7riKpbv avrd, 
'AXXa kcitw j3Xs\pag rdv djxsrepav odov elp7rov." 

Passing a bower last evening with my cows, 

A girl look'd out, — a girl with meeting brows. 

" Beautiful ! beautiful ! " cried she. I heard, 

But went on, looking down, and gave her not a word. 

This taste in female beauty appears to have been confined to the 
ancients. Boccaccio, in his Ameto, the precursor of the Decame- 
ron, where he gives several pictures of beautiful women, speaks 
more than once of disjoined eyebrows.! Chaucer, in the Court 
of Love, is equally express in favour of " a due distance." An 
arched eyebrow was always in request ; but we think it is doubt- 
ful whether we are to understand that the eyebrows were always 
desired to form separate arches, or to give an arched character 
to the brow considered in unison. In either case the curve 
should be very delicate. A straight eyebrow is better than a 
very arching one, which has a look of wonder and silliness. To 
have it immediately over the eye, is preferable, for the same 
reason, to its being too high and lifted. The Greeks liked eyes 
leaning upward towards each other; which indeed is a rare 
beauty, and the reverse of the animal character. If the brows 
over these took a similar direction, they would form an arch 

* In one of his Epistles beginning— " Nobles esprits de France poeti- 
qucs." 

t L'Ameto di Messer Giovanni Boccaccio, pp. 31, 32, 39. Parma, 
1802. 



CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 151 

together. Perhaps a sort of double curve was required, the par- 
ticular one over the eye, and the general one in the look altoge- 
ther.* But these are unnecessary refinements. Where great 
difference of taste is allowed, the point in question can be of little 
consequence. We cannot think, however, with Ariosto, that fair 
locks with black eyebrows are desirable. We see, by an article 
in an Italian catalogue, that the taste provoked a discussion. f 
It is to be found, however, in Achilles Tatius, and in the poem 
beginning 

"Lydia, bella puella, Candida," 

attributed to Gallus. A moderate distinction is desirable, espe- 
cially where the hair is very light. Hear Burns, in a passage 
full of life and sweetness — 

" Sae flaxen were her ringlets, 
Her eyebrows of a darker hue, 
Bewitchingly o'er-arching 

Twa laughing een o' bonny blue." 

It is agreed on all hands that a female eyebrow ought to be deli- 
cate, and nicely pencilled. Dante says of his mistress's, that it 
looked as if it was painted. 

" II ciglio 
Pulito, e brun, talche dipinto pare." — Rime, lib. v. 

The eyebrow, 
Polished and dark, as though the brush had drawn it. 

Brows ought to be calm and even. 

" Upon her eyelids many graces sat, 
Under the shadow of her even brows." — Fairy Queen. 

Eyelids have been mentioned before. The lashes are best when 
they are dark, long, and abundant without tangling. 

Shape of Head and Face, Ears, Cheeks, &c. — The shape 
of the head, including the face, is handsome in proportion as it 
inclines from round into oval. This should particularly appear, 
when the face is looking down. The skull should be like a noble 
cover to a beautiful goblet. The principal breadth is at the 
temples, and over the ears. The ears ought to be small, delicate, 
and compact. We have fancied that musical people have fine 

* See the Ameto, p. 32. 

f Barrotti, Gio. Andrea : Le Chiome Monde e Ciglia nere oVAlcina. 
Discorso Accademico. Padova, 1746, 



152 CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 

ears in that sense, as well as the other. But the internal con- 
formation must be the main thing with them. The same epithets 
of small, delicate, and compact, apply to the jaw ; which loses in 
beauty, in proportion as it is large and angular. The cheek is the 
seat of great beauty and sentiment. It is the region of passive 
and habitual softness. Gentle acquiescence is there ; modesty is 
there ; the lights and colours of passion play tenderly in and out 
its surface, like the Aurora of the northern sky. It has been 
seen how Anacreon has painted a cheek. Sir Philip Sidney has 
touched it with no less delicacy, and more sentiment: — " Her 
cheeks blushing, and withal, when she was spoken to, a little 
smiling, were like roses when their leaves are with a little breath 
stirred." — Arcadia, book i. Beautiful-cheeked is a favourite 
epithet with Homer. There is an exquisite delicacy, rarely 
noticed, in the transition from the cheek to the neck, just under 
the ear. Akenside has observed it ; but he hurts his feeling, as 
usual, with commonplace epithets : — 

" Hither turn 
Thy grateful footsteps ; hither, gentle maid, 
Incline thy polish'd forehead ; let thy eyes 
Effuse the mildness of their azure dawn ; 
And may the fanning breezes waft aside 
Thy radiant locks, disclosing, as it bends 
With airy softness from the marble neck, 
The cheek fair blooming." — Pleasures of Imagination. 

The " marble neck" is too violent a contrast; but the picture is 
delicate. 

" Effuse the mildness of their azure dawn " 

is an elegant and happy verse. 

We may here observe, that rakes and men of sentiment 
appear to have agreed in objecting to ornaments for the ears. 
Ovid, Sir Philip Sidney, and, we think, Beaumont and Fletcher, 
have passages against earrings ; but we cannot refer to the last. 

" Vos quoque non car is aures onerate lapillis, 
Quos legit in viridi decolor Indus aqua." — Artis Amor. lib. iii. 

Load not your ears with costly jewelry, 

Which the swart Indian culls from his green sea. 

This, to be sure, might be construed into a warning against 
the abuse, rather than the use, of such ornaments ; but the 
context is in favour of the latter supposition. The poet is recom- 
mending simplicity, and extolling the age he lives in for being 



CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 153 

sensible enough to dispense with show and finery. The passage 
in Sidney is express, and is a pretty conceit. Drawing a portrait 
of his heroine, and coming to the ear, he tells us, that 

" The tip no jewel needs to wear ; 
The tip is jewel to the ear." 

We confess that when we see a handsome ear without an ornament 
we are glad it is not there ; but if it has an ornament, and 
one in good taste, we know not how to wish it away. There is an 
elegance in the dangling of a gem suitable to the complexion. 
We believe the ear is better without it. Akenside's picture, for 
instance, would be spoiled by a ring. Furthermore, it is in the 
way of a kiss. 

Nose. — The nose in general has the least character of any of 
the features. "When we meet with a very small one, we only wish 
it larger ; when with a large one, we would fain request it to be 
smaller. In itself it is rarely anything. The poets have been 
puzzled to know what to do with it. They are generally con- 
tented with describing it as straight, and in good proportion. 
The straight nose, quoth Dante, — " II dritto naso.'\ " Her nose 
directed streight," saith Chaucer. " Her nose is neither too long 
nor too short," say the Arabian Nights. Ovid makes no mention 
of a nose. Ariosto says of Alcina's (not knowing what else to 
say), that envy could not find fault with it. Anacreon contrives 
to make it go shares with the cheek. Boccaccio, in one of his 
early works, the Ameto above mentioned, where he has an epithet 
for almost every noun, is so puzzled what to say of a nose, that 
he calls it odorante, the smelling nose. Fielding, in his contempt 
for so unsentimental a part of the visage, does not scruple to beat 
Amelia's nose to pieces, by accident ; in order to show how con- 
tented her lover can be, when the surgeon has put it decently to 
rights. This has been reckoned a hazardous experiment. Not 
that a lover, if he is worth anything, would not remain a lover 
after such an accident, but that it is well to have a member unin- 
jured, which has so little character to support its adversity. The 
commentators have a curious difficulty with a line in Catullus, 
They are not sure whether he wrote 

" Salve, nee nimio puella naso — " 
Hail, damsel, with by no means too much nose 5 

or, 

" Salve, nee minimo puella naso — " 
Hail, damsel, with by no means nose too little , 



154 CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 

It is a feature generally to be described by negatives. It is of 
importance, however, to the rest of the face. If a good nose will 
do little for a countenance otherwise poor, a bad one is a great 
injury to the best. An indifferent one is so common that it is 
easily tolerated. It appears, from the epithets bestowed upon 
that part of the face by the poets and romance writers, that there 
is no defect more universal than a nose a little wry, or out of 
proportion. The reverse is desirable, accordingly. A nose should 
be firmly, yet lightly cut, delicate, spirited, harmonious in its 
parts, and proportionate with the rest of the features. A nose 
merely well-drawn and proportioned, can be very insipid. Some 
little freedom and delicacy is required to give it character. The 
character which most becomes it is that of taste and apprehen- 
siveness. And a perfectly elegant face has a nose of this sort. 
Dignity, as regards this feature, depends upon the expression of 
the rest of the face. Thus a large aquiline nose increases the 
look of strength in a strong face, and of weakness in a weak one. 
The contrast — the want of balance — is too great. Junius adduces 
the authority of the sophist, Philostratus, for tetragonal or qua- 
drangular noses, — noses like those of statues ; that is to say, 
broad and level on the bridge, with distinct angles to the paral- 
lelogram. These are better for men than women. The genders 
of noses are more distinct than those of eyes and lips. The 
neuter are the commonest. A nose a little aquiline is not 
unhandsome in a woman. Cyrus's Aspasia had one, according to 
iElian. " She had very large eyes," quoth he, " and a nose 
somewhat aquiline ; " 6\iyov de yv ical hiriypviroQ* But a large 
aquiline nose is bad. It trenches upon the other sex, and requires 
all the graces of Aspasia to carry it off. r Those, indeed, will carry 
off anything. There are many handsome and even charming 
women with such noses ; but they are charming in spite of them, 
not by their assistance. Painters do not give them to their ideal 
beauties. We do not imagine angels with aquiline noses. Dignified 
men have them. Plato calls them royal. Marie Antoinette was 
not the worse for an aquiline nose ; at least in her triumphant 
days when she swam through an antechamber like a vision and 
swept away the understanding of Mr. Burke. But if a royal nose 
has anything to do with a royal will, she would have been the 
better, at last, for one of a less dominant description. A Boman 
nose may establish a tyranny : — according to Marmontel, a little 

* Var. Hist. lib. xii, cap. 1. 



CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY* 155 

turn-up nose overthrew one. At all events, it is more feminine ; 
and La Fontaine was of Marmontel's opinion. Writing to the 
Duchess of Bouillon, who had expressed a fear that he would 
grow tired of Chateau Thierry, he says, — ■ 

" Peut-on s'ennuyer en des lieux 
Honores par les pas, eclaires par les yeux 

D'une aimable et yiye Princesse, 
A pied blanc et mignon, a brune et longue tresse ? 
ISez trousse, c'est un charme encore selon mon sens, 

C'en est meme un des plus puissants. 
Pour moi, le temps d' aimer est passe, je l'avoue ; 

Et je merite qu'on me loue 

De ce libre et sincere aveu, 
Dont pourtant le public se souciera tres peu. 
Que j'aime ou n'aime pas, c'est pour lai meme chose. 

Mais s'il arrive que mon cceur 
Retourne a Tavenir dans sa premiere erreur, 
Nez aquilins et longs n'en seront pas la cause. " 

How can one tire in solitudes and nooks, 

Graced by the steps, enlighten'd by the looks, 
Of the most piquant of Princesses, 

With little darling foot, and long dark tresses ? 
A turn-up nose too, between you and me, 
Has something that attracts me mightily. 

My loving days, I must confess, are over, 

A fact it does me honour to discover ; 

Though, I suppose, whether I love or not, 
That brute, the public, will not care a jot : — 

The dev'l a bit will their hard hearts look to it, 
But should it happen, some fine day, 
That anything should lead me round that way, 

A long and beaky nose will certainly not do it. 



III.— MOUTH, CHIN, TEETH, BOSOM. 

MOUTH AND CHIN MOUTH THE PART OF THE FACE THE LEAST ABLE TO 

CONCEAL THE EXPRESSION OF TEMPER, ETC. — HANDSOME SMILES IN 
PLAIN FACES — TEETH — DIMPLES — NECK AND SHOULDERS — PERFECTION 
OF SHAPE — BOSOM — CAUTION AGAINST THE MISCONSTRUCTIONS OF THE 
COARSE-MINDED. 

Mouth and Chin. — The mouth, like the eyes, gives occasion 
to so many tender thoughts, and is so apt to lose and supersede 
itself in the affectionate softness of its effect upon us, that the 



156 CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY, 

first impulse, in speaking of it, is to describe it by a sentiment 
and a transport. Mr. Sheridan has hit this very happily — see his 
Rivals : 

" Sir Antii. Absolute. — Nay but, Jack, such eyes ! such eyes ! so 
innocently wild! so bashfully irresolute! not a glance but speaks and 
kindles some thought of love ! — Then, Jack, her cheeks ! her cheeks, Jack ! 
so deeply blushing at the insinuations of her tell-tale eyes ! — Then, Jack, 
her lips! — lips smiling at their own discretion; and if 'not smiling, more 
sweetly pouting ; more lovely in sullenness ! " 

We never met with a passage in all the poets that gave us a 
livelier and softer idea of this charming feature, than a stanza in 
a homely old writer of our own country. He is relating the 
cruelty of Queen Eleanor to the Fair Kosamond : — 

" With that she dash'd her on the lips, 
So dyed double red : 
Hard was the heart that gave the blow, 
Soft were those lips that bled." 

— Warner's Albion's England, book viii. chap. 41. 

Sir John Suckling, in his taste of an under lip, is not to be 
surpassed : — 

" Her lips were red, and one was thin 
Compared with that was next her chin, 
Some bee had stung it newly." 

The upper lip, observe, was only comparatively thin. Thin lips 
become none but shrews or niggards. A rosiness beyond that of 
the cheeks, and a good-tempered sufficiency and plumpness, are 
the indispensable requisites of a good mouth. Chaucer, a great 
judge, is very peremptory in this matter : — 

" With pregnant lippes, thick to kiss percase ; 
For lippes thin, not fat, but ever lean, 
They serve of naught ; they be not worth a bean ; 
For if the base be full, there is delight." — The Court of Lore. 

For the consolation, however, of those who have thin lips, and 
are not shrews or niggards, we must give it here as our opinion, 
founded on what we have observed, that lips become more or less 
contracted, in the course of years, in proportion as they are 
accustomed to express good-humour and generosity, or peevish- 
ness and a contracted mind. Remark the effect which a moment 
of ill-temper or grudgingness has upon the lips, and judge what 
may be expected from an habitual series of such moments. 
Kemark the reverse, and make a similar judgment. The mouth 



CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 157 

is the frankest part of the face. It can the least conceal the 
feelings. We can hide neither ill-temper with it nor good. We 
may affect what we please ; but affectation will not help us. In a 
wrong cause, it will only make our observers resent the endeavour 
to impose upon them. The mouth is the seat of one class of 
emotions, as the eyes are of another ; or rather, it expresses the 
same emotions but in greater detail, and with a more irrepressible 
tendency to mobility. It is the region of smiles and dimples, of 
a trembling tenderness, of sharp sorrow, of a full and breathing 
joy, of candour, of reserve, of a carking care, of a liberal sym- 
pathy. The mouth, out of its many sensibilities, may be fancied 
throwing up one great expression into the eyes ; as many lights 
in a city reflect a broad lustre into the heavens. On the other 
hand, the eyes may be supposed the chief movers, influencing the 
smaller details of their companion, as heaven influences earth. 
The first cause in both is internal and deep-seated. 

The more we consider beauty, the more we recognize its 
dependence on sentiment. The handsomest mouth, without expres- 
sion, is no better than a mouth in a drawing-book. An ordinary 
one, on the other hand, with a great deal of expression, shall 
become charming. One of the handsomest smiles we ever saw in 
a man, was that of a celebrated statesman who is reckoned plain. 
How handsome Mrs. Jordan was when she laughed ; who, never- 
theless, was not a beauty. If we only imagine a laugh full of 
kindness and enjoyment, or a " little giddy laugh," as Marot calls 
it — un petit ris foldtre — we imagine the mouth handsome as a 
matter of course ; at any rate, for the time. The material obeys 
the spiritual. Anacreon beautifully describes a lip as " a lip 
like Persuasion's," and says it calls upon us to kiss it. " Her 
lips," says Sir Philip Sidney, " though they were kept close with 
modest silence, yet with a pretty kind of natural swelling, they 
seemed to invite the guests that looked on them." — Arcadia, 
book i. 

Let me quote another passage from that noble romance, which 
was written to fill a woman's mind with all beautiful thoughts, 
and which w r e never met with a woman that did not like, notwith- 
standing its faults, and in spite of the critics. " Her tears came 
dropping down like rain in sunshine ; and she not taking heed to 
wipe the tears, they hung upon her cheeks and lips, as upon 
cherries, which the dropping tree bedeweth" — Book the Third. 
Nothing can be more fresh and elegant than this picture. 

A mouth should be of good natural dimensions, as well as 



158 CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 

plump in the lips. When the ancients, among their beauties, 
make mention of small mouths and lips, they mean small only as 
opposed to an excess the other way ; a fault very common in the 
south. The sayings in favour of small mouths, which have been 
the ruin of so many pretty looks, are very absurd. If there must 
be an excess either way, it had better be the liberal one. A 
petty, pursed-up mouth is fit for nothing but to be left to its self- 
complacency. Large mouths are oftener found in union with 
generous dispositions, than very small ones. Beauty should have 
neither ; but a reasonable look of openness and delicacy. It is 
an elegance in lips, when, instead of making sharp angles at the 
corner of the mouth, they retain a certain breadth to the very 
verge, and show the red. The corner then looks painted with a 
free and liberal pencil. 

Beautiful teeth are of a moderate size, even, and white, not a 
dead white, like fish-bones, which has something ghastly in it, 
but ivory or pearly white with an enamel. Bad teeth in a hand- 
some mouth present a contradiction, which is sometimes extremely 
to be pitied ; for a weak or feverish state of body may occasion 
them. Teeth, not kept as clean as possible, are unpardonable. 
Ariosto has a celebrated stanza upon a mouth : — 

" Sotto quel sta, quasi fra due vallette, 
La bocca sparsa di natio cinabro ; 
Quivi due filze son di perle elette, 
Che chiude ed apre un bello e dolce labro : 
Quindi escon le cortesi parolette 
Da render molle ogni cor rozzo e scabro ; 
Quivi si forma quel suave riso, 
Ch'apre a sua posta in terra il paradise*" 

— Or Ian. Fur. canto vii. 

Next, as between two little vales, appears 
The mouth, where spices and vermilion keep : 
There lurk the pearls, richer than sultan wears, 
Now casketed, now shown, by a sweet lip : 
Thence issue the soft words and courteous prayers, 
Enough to make a churl for sweetness weep : 
And there the smile taketh its rosy rise, 
i That opens upon earth a paradise. 

To the mouth belong not only its own dimples, but those of the 
cheek : — 

" 1c pozzette 
Che forma un dolce riso in be 11a guancia." — Tasso. 

" The delicate wells 
Which a sweet smile forms in a lovely cheek." 



CKITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 159 

The chin, to be perfect, should be round and delicate, neither 
advancing nor retreating too much. If it exceed either way, the 
latter defect is on the side of gentleness. The former anticipates 
old age. A rounded and gentle prominence is both spirited and 
beautiful ; and is eminently Grecian. It is an elegant counte- 
nance (affectation of course apart), where the forehead and eyes 
have an inclined and over-looking aspect, while the mouth is 
delicately full and dimpled, and the chin supports it like a 
cushion, leaning a little upward. A dimple in the chin is a 
favourite with the poets, and has a character of grace and ten- 
derness. 

Neck and Shouldees. — The shoulders in a female ought to 
be delicately plump, even, and falling without suddenness. Broad 
shoulders are admired by many. It is difficult not to like them, 
when handsomely turned. It seems as if " the more of a good 
thing the bettor." At all events, an excess that way may divide 
opinion, while of the deformity of pinched and mean-looking 
shoulders there can be no doubt. A good-tempered woman, of 
the order yclept buxom, not only warrants a pair of expansive 
shoulders, but bespeaks our approbation of them. Nevertheless 
they are undoubtedly a beauty rather on the masculine than 
feminine side. They belong to- manly strength. Achilles had 
them. Milton gives them to Adam. His 

" Hyacinthine locks 
Round from his parted forelock manly hung 
Clustering ; but not beneath his shoulders broad." 

Fielding takes care to give all his heroes huge calves and Her- 
culean shoulders, — graces, by the way, conspicuous in himself. 
Female shoulders ought rather to convey a sentiment of the gentle 
and acquiescent. They should lean under those of the other sex, 
as under a protecting shade. Looking at the male and female 
figure with the eye of a sculptor, our first impression with regard 
to the one should be, that it is the figure of a noble creature, 
prompt for action, and with shoulders full of power ; — with regard 
to the other, that it is that of a gentle creature, made to be 
beloved, and neither active nor powerful, but fruitful: — the mould 
of humanity. Her greatest breadth ought not to appear to be at 
the shoulders. The figure should resemble the pear on the tree, — 

" Winding gently to the waist." 



160 CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 

Of these matters, and of the bosom, it is difficult to speak ; 
but Horii soit qui mal y pense. This essay is written neither for 
the prudish nor the indelicate ; but for those who have a genuine 
love of the beautiful, and can afford to hear of it. It is not the 
poets and other indulgers in a lively sense of the beautiful that 
are deficient in a respect for it ; but they who suppose that every 
lively expression must of necessity contain a feeling of the gross 
and impertinent. We do not regard these graces, as they pass 
in succession before us, with the coarse and cunning eye of a rake 
at a tavern- door. We will venture to say, that we are too affec- 
tionate and even voluptuous for such a taste ; and that the real 
homage we pay the sex deserves the very best construction of the 
best people, and will have it. — 

" Fathers and husbands, I do claim a right 
In all that is called lovely. Take my sight 
Sooner than my affection from the fair. 
No face, no hand, proportion, line, or air 
Of beauty, but the muse hath interest in." — Ben Jonson. 

A bosom is most beautiful when it presents none of the extremes 
which different tastes have demanded for it. Its only excess 
should be that of health. This is not too likely to occur in a 
luxurious state of society. Modern customs and manners too 
often leave to the imagination the task of furnishing out the 
proper quantity of beauty, where it might have existed in perfec- 
tion. And a tender imagination will do so. The only final ruin 
of a bosom in an affectionate eye, is the want of a good heart. 
Nor shall the poor beauty which the mother has retained by dint 
of being no mother, be lovely as the ruin. Sentiment ! 
Beauty is but the outward and visible sign of thee ; and not 
always there, where thou art most. Thou canst supply her place 
when she is gone. Thou canst remain, and still make an eye 
sweet to look into ; a bosom beautiful to rest the heart on. 

A favourite epithet with the Greek poets, lyrical, epic, and 
dramatic, is deep-bosomed. A Greek meant to say, that he 
admired a chest truly feminine. It is to be concluded, that he 
also demanded one left to its natural state, as it appeared among 
the healthiest and loveliest of his countrywomen ; neither com- 
pressed, as it was by the fine ladies ; nor divided and divorced in 
that excessive manner, which some have accounted beautiful.* 

* See an epigram in the Greek Anthology, beginning 

"'Etcfiaivu x^V /<* ()0$6xpoa } TrouaXofivOa" 



CKITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 161 

It was certainly nothing contradictory to grace and activity which 
he demanded. 

" Crown me then, I'll play the lyre, 
Bacchus, underneath thy shade : 
Heap me, heap me, higher and higher ; 
And I'll lead a dance of fire, 

With a dark deep-bosom'd maid." — Anacreon, Ode V. 

Rosy-bosom d is another Greek epithet. Milton speaks in 
Comas of 

" The Graces and the rosy-bosom'd Hours." 

Virgil says of Venus, 

She said, 
And turn'd, refulgent with a rosy neck.* 

" O'er her warm neck and rising bosom moye 
The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Loye." — Gray. 

Which is a couplet made up of this passage in Virgil and another. 
Virgil follows the Greeks, and the Greeks followed nature. All 
this bloom and rosy refulgence, which are phrases of the poets, 
mean nothing more than that healthy colour which appears in the 
finest skin. We shall see more of it when we come to speak of 
Hands and Arms. 

A writer in the Anthology makes use of the pretty epithet, 
tc vernal~bosom'd"i The most delicate painting of a vernal 
bosom is in Spenser : — 

" And in her hand a sharp boar-spear she held, 

And at her back a bow and quiver gay 

Stuft with steel-headed darts, wherewith she quell'd 

The salvage beasts in her victorious play, 

Knit with a golden bauldrick, which forelav 

Athwart her snowy breast, and did divide 

Her dainty paps ; which, like young fruit in May, 

Now little gan to swell ; and being tied, 
Through their thin weeds their places only signified." 

Dry den copies after Spenser, but not with such refinement. 
His passage, however, is so beautiful, and has a gentleness and 
movement so much to the purpose, that I cannot resist the plea- 
sure of quoting it. He is describing Boccaccio's heroine in the 
story of Cymon and Ipliigenia : — 

" By chance conducted, or by thirst constrained, 
The deep recesses of the grove he gain'd ; 

* " Dixit ; et avertens, rosea cervice refulsit." 
f 'EiapdfxacrOoQ. 

11 






162 CEITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 

Where, in a plain defended by the wood, 
Crept through the matted grass a crystal flood, 
By which an alabaster fountain stood : 
And on the margin of the fount was laid, 
Attended by her slaves, a sleeping maid ; 
Like Dian and her nymphs, when, tired with sport, 
To rest by cool Eurotas they resort. 
The dame herself the goddess well express'd, 
Not more distinguished by her purple vest, 
Than by the charming features of her face, 
And e'en in slumber a superior grace. 
Her comely limbs composed with decent care, 
Her body shaded with a slight cymar, 
Her bosom to the view was only bare ; 
Where two beginning paps were scarcely spied, 
For yet their places were but signified. 

The fanning wind upon her bosom blows ; \ 

To meet the fanning wind the bosom rose ; I 

The fanning wind, and purling streams, continue her repose." j 

This beautiful conclusion, with its repetitions, its play to and fro, 
and the long continuous line with which it terminates, is delight- 
fully soft and characteristic. The beauty of the sleeper and of 
the landscape mingle with one another. The wind and the bosom 
are gentle challengers. 

" Each smoother seems than each, and each than each seems smoother." 

Even the turn of Dryden's last triplet is imitated from Spenser. 
■ — See the divine passage of the concert in the Bower of Bliss, 
Fairy Queen, book ii. canto 12, stanza 71. " The sage and 
serious Spenser," as Milton called him, is a great master of the 
beautiful in all its branches. He also knew, as well as any poet, 
how to help himself to beauty out of others. The former passage 
imitated by Dryden was, perhaps, suggested by one in Boccaccio.* 
The simile of " young fruit in May " is from Ariosto. 

" Bianca neve c il bel collo, e'l petto latte ; 
II collo e tondo, il petto colmo e largo : 
Due pome acerbe, e pur d'avorio fatte, 
Vengono e van come on da al primo margo, 
Quando piacevole aura il mar combatte." 

— Orlan. Fur. canto vii. 
Her bosom is like milk, her neck like snow ; 
A rounded neck ; a bosom, where you see 
Two crisp young ivory apples come and go, 
Like waves that on the shore beat tenderly, 
When a sweet air is ruffling to and fro. 

* L'Ameto, as above, pp. 31, 33. 



CBITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 163 

But Ariosto has been also to Boccaccio, and he to Theocritus; 
in whom, we believe, this fruitful metaphor is first to be met with. 
It is very suitable to his shepherds, living among the bowers of 
Sicily. — See Idyl xxvii. v. 49. Sir Philip Sidney has repeated 
it in the Arcadia. But poets in all ages have drawn similar 
metaphors from the gardens. Solomon's Song abounds with 
them. There is a hidden analogy, more than poetical, among all 
the beauties of nature. 

We quit this tender ground, prepared to think very ill of any 

person who thinks we have said too much of it. Its beauty would 

not allow us to say less ; but not the less do we " with reverence 

deem " of those resting-places for the head of love and sorrow — 

" Those dainties made to still an infantas cries," 



IV.— HAND, AKM, WALK, VOICE. 

HAND AND ARM — ITALIAN EPITHET "MOEBIDA" — FIGURE — CARRIAGE, 
&C. — PERILS OF FASHION — VICE OF TIGHT-LACING — HIPS — LEGS AND 

FEET WALK — CARRIAGE OF ROMAN AND ITALIAN WOMEN — THAT OF 

ENGLISH PREFERRED — VOICE DITTO — REASON WHY THE MOST BEAU- 
TIFUL WOMEN ARE IN GENERAL NOT THE MOST CHARMING. 

Hand and Arm. — A beautiful arm is of a round and flowing 
outline, and gently tapering; the hand long, delicate, and well 
turned, with taper fingers, and a certain buoyancy and turn 
upwards in their very curvature and repose. We fear this is not 
well expressed. We mean, that when the hand is at rest on its 
palm, the wrist a little bent, and the other part of it, with the 
fingers, stretching and dipping forwards with the various undula- 
tions of the joints, it ought, however plump and in good condition, 
to retain a look of promptitude and lightness. The spirit of the 
guitar ought to be in it ; of the harp and the pianoforte, of the 
performance of all elegant works, even to the dairy of Eve, who 
" tempered dulcet creams." — See a picture in Spenser, not to be 
surpassed by any Italian pencil : — 

" In her left hand a cup of gold she held, 
And with her right the riper fruit did reach, 
Whose sappy liquor, that with fulness swell'd, 
Into her cup she scruz'd with dainty breach 
Of her fine fingers, without foul impeach 
That so fair wine-press made the wine more sweet." 

— Book ii. canto 12. 



164 CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 

It is sometimes thought that hands and arms cannot be too white. 
A genuine white is very beautiful, and is requisite to give them 
perfection ; but shape and spirit are the first things in all beauty. 
Complexion follows. A hand and arm may be beautiful, without 
being excessively fair : they may also be very fair and not at all 
beautiful. Above all, a sickly white is not to be admired, what- 
ever may be thought of it by the sallow Italian, who praises a 
white hand for being morbid. We believe, however, he means 
nothing more than a contradiction to his yellow. He would have 
his mistress's complexion unspoilt by oil and maccaroni. These 
excessive terms, as we have before noticed, are not to be taken to 
the letter. A sick hand has its merits, if it be an honest one. 
It may excite a feeling beyond beauty. But sickliness is not 
beauty. In the whitest skin there ought to be a look of health.* 
The nails of the fingers ought to be tinged with red. When the 
Greeks spoke of the rosy-fingered Morn, it was not a mere meta- 
phor, alluding to the ruddiness of the time of day. They referred 
also to the human image. The metaphor was founded in Nature, 
whether the goddess's office or person was to be considered. 

Wherever' a genuine and lasting beauty is desired, the blood 
must be circulated. 

Figure, Carriage, &c. — The beauty of the female figure con- 
sists in being gently serpentine. Modesty and luxuriance, fulness 
and buoyancy ; a rising, as if to meet ; a falling, as if to retire ; 
spirit, softness, apprehensiveness, self-possession, a claim on 
protection, a superiority to insult, a sparkling something enshrined 
in gentle proportions and harmonious movement, should all be 
found in that charming mixture of the spiritual and material. 
Mind and body are not to be separated, where real beauty exists. 
Should there be no great intellect, there will be an intellectual 
instinct, a grace, an address, a naturally wise amiableness. 
Should intellect unite with these, there is nothing upon earth so 
powerful, except the spirit whom it shall call master. 

Beauty too often sacrifices to fashion. The spirit of fashion 
is not the beautiful, but the wilful ; not the graceful, but the 
fantastic ; not the superior in the abstract, but the superior in 
the worst of all concretes, the vulgar. It is the vulgarity that 
can afford to shift and vary itself, opposed to the vulgarity that 
longs to do so, but cannot. . The high point of taste and elegance 

* " Candidis tamen inanibus rosei ruboris aliquid suffundatur." — 
Junius, cap. ix. sect. 26. 



CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 165 

is to be sought for, not in the most fashionable circles, but in the 
best bred, and such as can dispense with the eternal necessity of 
never being the same thing. Beauty there, both moral and 
personal, will do all it can to resist the envy of those who would 
deface, in order to supersede it. The highest dressers, the 
highest face -painters, are not the loveliest women, but such as 
have lost their loveliness, or never had any. The others know 
the value of their natural appearance too well. It is these that 
inspire the mantua-maker or milliner with some good thought. 
The herd of fashion take it up, and spoil it. A hundred years 
ago it was the fashion for ladies to have long waists like a funnel. 
Who would suppose that this originated in a natural and even 
rustic taste ? And yet the stomachers of that time were only 
caricatures of the bodice of a country beauty. Some handsome 
women brought the original to town; fashion proceeded to render 
it ugly and extravagant ; and posterity laughs at the ridiculous 
portraits of its grandmothers. The poet might have addressed a 
beauty forced into this fashion, as he did his heroine in the 
celebrated lines : — . 

" No longer shall the bodice, aptly laced, 
From thy full bosom to thy slender waist, 
That air and harmony of shape express, 
Fine by degrees, and beautifully less." 

— Prior's Henry and Emma. 



No : it was 



Gaunt all at once, and hideously little. 



It was like a pottle of strawberries, instead of a human waist. 
Some years ago it was the fashion for a lady to look like an hour- 
glass, or a huge insect, or anything else cut in two, and bolstered 
out at head and feet. A fashion that gracefully shows the figure 
is one thing : a fashion that totally conceals it may have its 
merits ; but voluntarily to accept puffed shoulders in lieu of good 
ones, and a pinch in the ribs for a body like that of the Yenus 
de' Medici, is what no woman of taste should put up with who 
can avoid it. They are taking her in. The levelling rogues 
know what they are about. They are for rendering their own 
crooked backs and unsatisfactory waists indistinguishable. If the 
levelling stopped here, it might be pardonable. Fair play is a 
jewel that one wistes to see everybody enriched by. But as 
fashion is too often at variance with beauty, it is also at variance 
with health. The more a woman sacrifices of the one, the more 
she loses of the other. Thick legs are the least result of these 



166 CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTt. 

little waists. Bad lungs, bad livers, bad complexions, deaths, 
melancholy, and worse than all, rickety and melancholy children, 
are the consequences of the tricks that fashion plays with the 
human body. 

It is a truism to say that a waist should be neither pinched 
in nor shapeless, neither too sudden nor too shelving, &c, but a 
natural, unsophisticated waist, properly bending when at rest, 
properly falling in when the person is in motion. But truisms 
are sometimes as necessary to repeat in writing, as to abide by in 
painting or sculpture. The worst of it is, they are not always 
allowed to be spoken of. For instance, there is a truism called a 
hip. It is surely a very modest and respectable joint, and of 
great use to the rising generation. A sculptor could no more 
omit it in a perfect figure, than he could omit a leg or an arm. 
And yet, by some very delicate train of reasoning, known only to 
the double-refined, not merely the word, but the thing, was sup- 
pressed about twenty years back. The word vanished : the joint 
was put under the most painful restrictions : it seemed as if there 
was a Society for the Suppression of Hips. The fashion did not 
last, or there is no knowing what would have become of us. We 
should have been the most melancholy, hipped, unhipped genera- 
tion that ever walked without our proper dimensions. Moore s 
Almanac would have contained new wonders for us. Finally, we 
should have gone out, have wasted, faded, old-maided-and- 
bachelored ourselves away, grown 

" Fine by degrees, and beautifully less," 

till a Dutch jury (the only survivors) brought in the verdict of the 
polite world, — Died for want of care in the mother. At present a 
writer may speak of hips, and live. Nay, the fancies of the men 
seem to have been so wrought upon by the recollection of those 
threatening times, that they have amplified into hips themselves, 
and even grown pigeon-breasted. Such are the melancholy con- 
sequences of violating the laws of Nature. 

A true female figure, then, is falling and not too broad in the 
shoulders ; moderate, yet inclining to fulness rather than de- 
ficiency, in the bosom ; gently tapering, and without violence of 
any sort, in the waist ; naturally curving again in those never-to- 
be-without-apology-alluded-to hips ; and, finally, her buoyant 
1 ightness should be supported upon natural legs, not at all like 
a man's ; and upon feet which, though little, are able to support 
all the rest. 



CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 167 

Ariosto has described a foot, — 

" II breve, asciutto, e ritondetto piede." 

The short, and neat, and little rounded foot. 

The shortness, however, is not to be made by dint of shoes. It 
must be natural. It must also be not too short. It should be 
short and delicate, compared with that of the other sex ; but 
sufficient for all purposes of walking, and running, and dancing, 
and dispensing with tight shoes ; otherwise it is neither handsome 
in itself, nor will it give rise to graceful movements. It is better 
to have the sentiment of grace in a foot, than a forced or 
unnatural smallness. The Chinese have three ideas in their 
heads : — tea, the necessity of keeping off ambassadors, and the 
beauty of small feet. The way in which they caricature this 
beauty is a warning to all dull understandings. We make our 
feet bad enough already by dint of squeezing. Nations with 
shoes have no proper feet, like those who wear sandals. But the 
Chinese out-pinch an inquisitor. We have seen a model of a 
lady's foot of that country, in which the toes were fairly turned 
underneath. They looked as if they were almost jammed into 
and made part of the sole. In the British Museum, if we re- 
member, there is a pair of shoes that belonged to such a foot as 
this, which are shown in company with another pair, the property 
of Queen Elizabeth. Her Majesty stood upon no ceremony in 
that matter, and must have stamped to some purpose. 

But what are beautiful feet, if they support not, and carry 
about with them, other graces ? What are the most harmonious 
proportions, if the soul of music is not within ? Graceful move- 
ment, an unaffected elegance of demeanour, is to the figure what 
sense and sweetness are to the eyes. It is the soul looking out. 
It is what a poet has called the " thought of the body." The 
ancients, as the moderns do still in the south, admired a stately 
carriage in a woman : though the taste seems to have been more 
general in Rome than in Greece. It is to be observed, that 
neither in Greece nor Rome had the women at any time received 
that truly feminine polish, which renders their manners a direct, 
though not an unsuitable, contrast to those of the other sex. It 
was reserved for the Goths and their chivalry to reward them 
with this refinement ; and their northern descendants have best 
preserved it. The walk which the Latin poets attribute to their 
beauties, is still to be seen in all its stateliness at Rome. " Shall 
I be treated in this manner?" says Juno, complaining of her 



168 CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 

injured dignity, — u I, who walk the queen of the gods, the sister 
and the wife of Jove ?" * — Venus, meeting iEneas, allows herself 
to be recognized in departing : — 

- " Pedes vestis defluxit ad imos, 



Et vera incessu patuit Dea." 

" In length of train descends her sweeping gown, 
And by her graceful walk the queen of love is known." — Dbyden. 

A stately verse ; — but known is not strong enough fox patuit, and 
Virgil does not say " the queen of love," but simply the goddess 
— the divinity. The walk included every kind of superiority. It 
is the step of Homer's ladies — 

" Of Troy's proud dames whose garments sweep the ground." — Pope. 

The painting has more of Eubens than Raphael ; and we could 
not help thinking, when in Italy, that the walk of the females had 
more spirit than grace. They know nothing of the swimming 
voluptuousness with which our ladies at court used to float into 
the drawing-room with their hoops ; or the sweet and modest 
sway hither and thither, a little bending, with which a young girl 
shall turn and wind about a garden by herself, half serious, half 
playful. Their demeanour is sharper and more vehement. The 
grace is less reserved. There is, perhaps, less consciousness of 
the sex in it, but it is not the most modest or touching on that 
account. The women in Italy sit and sprawl about the doorways 
in the attitudes of men. Without being viragos, they swing their 
arms as they walk. There is infinite self-possession, but no sub- 
jection of it to a sentiment. The most graceful and modest have 
a certain want of retirement. Their movements do not play 
inwards, but outwards : do not wind and retreat upon themselves, 
but are developed as a matter of course . If thought of, they are 
equally suffered to go on, with an unaffected and crowning satis- 
faction, conquering and to conquer. This is the walk that Dante 
admired : — 

" Soave a guisa va di un bel pavone ; 
Diritta sopra se, come una grua." 

Sweetly she goes, like the bright peacock ; straight 
Above herself, like to the lady crane. 

This is not the way we conceive Imogen or Desdemona to have 
walked. 

The carriage of Laura, Petrarch's mistress, was gentle ; but 

* " Ego, qua? divum incedo rcgina," &c. 



CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 169 

she was a Provencal, not an Italian. He counts it among tfie 
four principal charms which rendered him so enamoured. They 
were all identified with a sentiment. There was her carriage or 
walk ; her sweet looks ; her dulcet words ; and her kind, modest, 
and self-possessed demeanour. 

" E con Pandar, e col soave sguardo, 
S' accordan le dolcissime parole, 
E l'atto mansueto, uniile, e tardo. 
Di tai quattro faville, e non gia sole, 
Nasce '1 gran foco di ch' io vivo ed ardo : 
Che son fatto un augel notturno al sole." — Sonnet cxxxi. 

From these four sparks it was, and not the sun, 
Sprung the great fire, that makes me ever burn, — 
A nightingale whose song affronts that sun. 

In this sonnet is the origin of a word of Milton's, not noticed 
by the commentators. 

" With store of ladies, whose bright eyes 
Rain influence." — L' Allegro. 

"Da begli occhi un piacer si caldopwye." 

" So warm a pleasure rains from her sweet eyes." 

And in another beautiful sonnet, where he describes her sparkling 
with more than her wonted lustre, he says, 

" Non era l'andar suo cosa mortale, 
Ma d' angelica forma." — Sonnet lxviii. 

Her going was no mortal thing ; but shaped 
Like to an angel's. 

Now this is the difference between the walk of the ancient and 
modern heroine ; of the beauty classical and Provencal, Italian 
and English. The one was, like a goddess's, stately, and at the 
top of the earth : the other is like an angel's, humbler, but nearer 
heaven. 

It is the same with the voice. The southern voice is loud 
and uncontrolled ; the women startle you, bawling and gabbling 
in the summer air. . In the north, the female seems to bethink 
her of a thousand delicate restraints ; her words issue forth with 
a sort of cordial hesitation. They have a breath and apprehen- 
siveness in them, as if she spoke with every part of her being. 

" Her voice was ever soft, gentle and low, 
An excellent thing in woman." — Shakspeare. 

As the best things, however, are the worst when spoiled, it is not 
easy to describe how much better the unsophisticated bawling of 



W 



CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 



the Italian is, than the affectation of a low and gentle voice in a 
body full of furious passions. The Italian nature is a good one, 
though run to excess. You can pare it down. A good system of 
education would make it as fine a thing morally, as good training 
renders Italian singing the finest in the world. But a furious 
Englishwoman affecting sweet utterance ! — " Let us take any 
man's horses," as Falstaff says. 

It is an old remark, that the most beautiful women are not 
always the most fascinating. It may be added, we fear, that they 
are seldom so. The reason is obvious. They are apt to rely too 
much on their beauty ; or to give themselves too many airs. 
Mere beauty ever was, and ever will be, but a secondary thing, 
except with fools. And fools admire it for as little time as any- 
body else ; perhaps not so long. They have no fancies to adorn 
it with. If this secondary thing fall into disagreeable ways, it 
becomes but a fifth or sixth rate thing, or nothing at all, or worse 
than nothing. We resent the unnatural mixture. We shrink 
from it as we should from a serpent with a beauty's head. The 
most fascinating women are those that can most enrich the every- 
day moments of existence. In a particular and attaching sense, 
they are those that can partake our pleasures and our pains in 
the liveliest and most devoted manner. Beauty is little without 
this. With it, she is indeed triumphant. 



( 171 ) 



OF DECEASED STATESMEN WHO HAVE WRITTEN 
VERSES. 

UNIVERSALITY OF POETRY, AND CONSEQUENT GOOD EFFECT OF A TASTE 

FOR IT THE GREATER THE STATESMAN, THE MORE UNIVERSAL HIS 

MIND — ALMOST ALL GREAT BRITISH STATESMEN HAVE WRITTEN 
VERSES — SPECIMEN OF VERSES BY WYATT, BY ESSEX, BY SACKVILLE, 
RALEIGH, MARVELL, PETERBOROUGH, AND LORD HOLLAND. 

The love of moral beauty, and that retention of the spirit of 
youth, which is implied by the indulgence of a poetical taste, are 
evidences of good disposition in any man, and argue well for the 
largeness of his mind in other respects. For this is the boast of 
poetry above all other arts ; that, sympathizing with everything, 
it leaves no corner of wisdom or knowledge unrecognized ; which 
• is a universality that cannot be predicated of any science, how- 
ever great. But in a statesman, this regard for the poetical is 
doubly pleasing, from the supposed dryness of his studies, 
and the character he is apt to obtain for woiidliness. We are 
delighted to see that, sympathizing with poetry, he sympathizes 
with humanity ; and that, in attributing to him a mere regard for 
expedience and success, we do him injustice. In truth, most 
men do injustice to one another, when they think ill of what is at 
their heart's core ; nay, even when they take for granted those 
avowals of cunning and misbelief, which are themselves generated 
by an erroneous principle of sociality, and a regard for what their 
neighbours will think of them. If it were suddenly to become 
the fashion for men to have faith in one another, Bond Street and 
Regent Street would be crowded to-morrow with poetry and 
sentiment ; not because fashion is fashion (for that is a child's 
reason), but because fashion itself arises from the social principle, 
however narrowly exercised, and goes upon the ground of our 
regard for one another's opinion. Statesmen are too often un- 
justly treated in men's minds, as practisers of mere cunning and 
expedience, and lovers of power. Much self-love is doubtless 
among them, and much love of power. Where is it not ? But 
higher aspirations are oftener mingled with the very cunning 



172 OF DECEASED STATESMEN WHO HAVE WRITTEN VERSES. 

and expedience, than the narrow-minded suppose. Indeed, the 
very position which statesmen occupy, and the largeness of the 
interests in which they deal, tend to create such aspirations where 
they do not very consciously exist ; for a man cannot be habitually 
interested, even on his own account, with the concerns of nations 
and the welfare of his fellow-creatures, without having his nature 
expanded. Statesmen learn to feel as " England," and as 
" France," or at least as the influential portion of the country, 
and not as mere heads of a party, however the partisanship may 
otherwise influence them, or be identified with their form of 
policy. By-and-by we hope they may feel, not as " England" or 
as " France," but as the whole world ; and they will so, as the 
world advances in knowledge and influence. Now poetry is the 
breath of beauty, flowing around the spiritual world, as the winds 
that wake up the flowers do about the material ; and in propor- 
tion as statesmen have a regard for poetry, and for what the 
highest poetry loves, they " look abroad," as Bacon phrases it, 
" into universality," and the universe partakes of the benefit. 
Bacon himself wrote verses, though he had not heart enough to 
write good ones ; but his great knowledge told him, that verses 
were good things to write. 

We must compress our recollections on this tempting subject 
into the smallest possible compass, and therefore shall confine 
ourselves to the most truly poetical instances we can call to mind; 
that is to say, such as imply the most genuine regard for what is 
imaginative and unworldly, — the most childlike spirit retained in 
the maturest brains and manliest hearts. We must confine our- ' 
selves also to our own country. For it is a very curious and 
agreeable fact, that scarcely any name of eminence can be men- 
tioned in the political world, from Solon and Lycurgus down to 
the present moment, that has not, at one period of the man's life 
or another, been connected with some tribute to the spirit of 
grace and fancy in the shape of verse. Perhaps there is not a 
single statesman in the annals of Great Britain, that will not be 
found to have written something in verse, — some lines to his 
mistress, compliment to his patron, jest on his opponent, or elegy 
or epithalamium on a court occasion. Even Burleigh, in his 
youth, wrote verses in French and Latin : Bacon versified psalms :* 

* Here is one of the couplets, not to be surpassed in the annals of Grub 
Street : — 

" With wine, man's spirit for to recreate ; 
And oil, man's faccyor to exhilarate ! ! " 



OF DECEASED STATESMEN WHO HAVE WRITTEN VERSES. 173 

and Clarendon, when he was Mr. Hide, and one of the " wits 
about town," wrote complimentary verses to his friends the poets. 
There are some on a play of Kanclolph's — the concluding couplet 
of which may be thought ominous, or auspicious (as the reader 
pleases) of the future historian's royalism, — 

" Thus much, where King applauds " [that is to say, the king !] "I dare 
be bold 
To say, — 'Tis petty treason to withhold."— Edw x ard Hide. 

Wyatt, Essex, SackviHe, Ealeigh, Falkland, Marvell, Temple, 
Somers, Bolingbroke, Pulteney, Burke, Fox, Sheridan, Canning, 
&c. &c, all wrote verses; many of them late in life. Pope's 
Lord Oxford wrote some, and very bad they were. They were 
suggested by some displeasure with the court after his attempted 
assassination by Guiscard. 

" To serve with love, 
And shed your blood, 
Approved is above ; 
But here below, 
The examples show, 
Tis fatal to be good ! " 

Lord Chatham wrote Latin verses at college. Pitt, his son, 
wrote English ones in his youth, and assisted his brothers and 
sisters in composing a play. Even that caricature of an intriguing 
and servile statesman, Bubb Dodington, had a poetical vein of 
tender and serious grace. 

Our first statesman, whose verses are worth quoting, is Sir 
Thomas Wyatt, a diplomatist of exquisite address in the service of 
Henry the Eighth. He was rather a great man than a great poet, 
and his most important pieces in verse are imitations from other 
languages. But he was very fond of the art, and was accounted 
a rival in his day of his illustrious friend, the Earl of Surrey. 
The following "Description" is in the highest moral taste, and 
reminds us of some of the sweet quiet faces in the Italian masters, 
or the exquisite combination of "glad and sad" in the female 
countenances of Chaucer : — 

DESCRIPTION OP SUCH A ONE AS HE WOULD LOVE. 

" A face that should content me wond'rous well, 
Should not be fair, but lovely to behold ; 
With gladsome chere, all grief for to expell ; 
With sober looks so would I that it should 



174 OF DECEASED STATESMEN WHO HAVE WRITTEN VERSES. 

Speak without words, such words as none can tell ; 

The tress also should be of crisped gold. 
With wit, and these, might chance I might be tied, 

And knit again the knot that should not slide." 

The reader may be amused with th^ following specimen of the 
pleasantness with which a great man can trifle. It is 

A RIDDLE OF A GIFT GIVEN BY A LADY. 

" A lady gave me a gift she had not ; 
And I received her gift I took not ; 
She gave it me willingly, and yet she would not ; 
And I received it, albeit I could not. 
If she give it me, I force not ; 
And if she take it again, she cares not ; 
Construe what this is, and tell not ; 
For I am fast sworn, I may not." 

The solution is understood to be a Kiss. 

Our next poetical statesman is Queen Elizabeth's Earl of 
Essex ; and of a truly poetical nature was he, though with this 
unfortunate drawback, — that he had a will still stronger in him 
than love, and thrusting itself in front of his understanding, — to 
the daring of all opposition, good as well as bad, and downbreak 
of himself and fortunes. He was more of a lover of poets, it is 
true, than a poet ; but he himself was a poem and a romance. 
The man who could even think that he could wish to " hold in 
his heart the sorrows of all his friends " (for such is a beautiful 
passage in one of his letters) must have had a noble capability in 
his nature, that makes us bleed for his bleeding, and wish that 
he had partaken less of the stormier passions. He died on the 
scaffold for madly attempting to dictate to his sovereign by force 
of arms ; and Elizabeth, as fierce as he, and fuller of resentment, 
is thought by some to have broken her heart for the sentence. 
Here follow some most curious verses, which show the simplicity, 
and love of gentleness, in one of the corners of the man's mind. 
They were the close of a despatch he sent to Elizabeth, when he 
was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ! Imagine such a winding up of 
a state paper now ! 

" Happy is he could finish forth his fate 
In some unhaunted desert most obscure, 

From all society, from love and hate, 
Of worldly folk ; then should he sleep secure, 
Then wake again, and yield God ever praise, 



OF DECEASED STATESMEN WHO HAVE WRITTEN VERSES. 175 

Content with hips and haws and bramble-berry, — 
In contemplation passing ont his days, 

And change of holy thoughts to make him merry ; 
Who when he dies, his tomb may be a bush 
Where harmless robin dwells with gentle thrush." 

We never could understand how it was, that Sackville, Lord 
Dorset (in the time of Elizabeth), who wrote the fine Induction 
to the Mirror of Magistrates, as well as the tragedy of Gorboduc, 
never wrote anything more, — at least of any consequence, and as 
far as we know. It is true, he became a busy statesman ; but 
what surprises us is, that so genuine a poet could refrain from his 
poetical vocation. We have made up^ our minds that he must 
have written a good deal which is lost ; for we can as little 
imagine a poet passing the greater part of his life without writing 
poetry, as a lark who never sings. 

The Induction to the Mirror of Magistrates is a look in at 
the infernal regions, and is like a portal to the allegorical part of 
the Fairy Queen, or rather to the sadder portion of that part ; for 
it has none of the voluptuousness, and but little intimation of 
the beauty ; nor is the style anything nearly so rich. Perhaps a 
better comparison would be that of the quaint figures of the 
earliest Italian painters, compared with those of Raphael. Or it 
is a bit of a minor Dante. But the poetry is masterly of its 
kind, — full of passion and imagination, — true, and caring for 
nothing but truth. The poet's guide in his visit is Sorrow : — 

" Ere I was ware, into a desart wood, 
We now were come ; where hand in hand embraced, 
She led the way, and through the thick so traced 
As, but I had been guided by her might, 
It was no way for any mortal wight. 

But lo ! while thus amidst the desart dark 
We passed on, with steps and pace unmeet, 
A rumbling roar, confused with howl and bark 
Of dogs, shook all the ground under our feet. 
And struck the din within our ears so deep, 
As, half distraught, unto the ground I fell, 
Besought return, and not to visit hell. 
But she, forthwith, uplifting me apace, 
Removed my dread, and with a steadfast mind, 
Bade me come on, for here was now the place. 
# # # # 

Next saw we Dread, all trembling how he shook, 
With foot uncertain, proffered here and there ; 
Benummed of speech, and, with a ghastly look, 



176 OF DECEASED STATESMEN WHO HAVE WRITTEN VEKSES. 

Searched every place, all pale and dead with fear, 
His cap borne up with staring of his hair. 

By him lay heavy Sleep, cousin of Death, 
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone ; 
A very corpse save yielding forth a breath. — 
The body's rest, the quiet of the heart, 
The travail's ease, the still night's feer * was he, 
And of our life in earth the better part, 
Beaver of sight, and yet in whom we see 
Things oft that tide, and oft that never be ; 
Without respect esteeming equally 
King Croesus' pomp, and Irus r poverty. 
* * * * 

On her (Famine) while we thus firmly fixed our eyes, 
That bled for ruth of such a dreary sight, 
Lo ! suddenly she shrieked in so huge wise, 
As made hell gates to shiver with the might.''' 

Observe the line marked in italics in the following passage. 
It may be called the sublime of mud and dirt ! Perhaps Shak- 
speare took from it his " hell-broth " that " boils and bubbles ;" 
but the consistency is here thicker and more horrid, — a bog of 
death : — 

" Hencefrom when scarce I could mine eyes withdraw 
That filled with tears as doth the springing well, 
We passed on so far forth till we saw 
Bude Acheron, a loathsome lake to tell, 
That boils and bubs up swelth as black as hell. 
# * # # 

Thence came we to the horror and the hell, 
The large great kingdoms, and the dreadful reign 
Of Pluto in his throne where he did dwell, 
The wide waste places, and the hugie plain, 
The wailings, shrieks, and sundry sorts of pain, 
The sights, the sobs, the deep and deadly groan, 
Earth, air, and all, resounding plaint and moan." 

Sackville has been gathered into collections of British poetry. 
So ought Sir Walter Baleigh, whose poems have been lately 
republished. Raleigh was a genuine poet, spoilt by what has 
spoilt so many men otherwise great, — nis rival Essex included, — 
the ascendancy of his will. His will thrust itself before his 
understanding, — the imperious part of his energy before the 
rational or the loving ; and hence the failure, even in his worldly 
views, of one of the most accomplished of men. We cannot say 

* Companion. 



OF DECEASED STATESMEN WHO HAVE WRITTEN VERSES. 177 

that, like Bacon, he had no heart ; otherwise he could not have 
been a poet ; but like Bacon, he over-estimated worldly cunning ; 
which is a weapon for little men, not for great ; and like Bacon 
he fell by it. In short, he wanted the highest point of all great- 
ness, — truth. Raleigh's poems contain some interesting cravings 
after that repose and quiet, which great restlessness so often feels, 
and to which the poetical part of his nature must have inclined 
him ; but a writer succeeds best in that which includes his entire 
qualities ; and the best productions of this lawless and wilful 
genius is the fine sonnet on the Fairy Queen of his friend 
Spenser ; which, not content with admiring as its greatness 
deserved, he violently places at the head of all poems, ancient 
and modern, sweeping Petrarch into oblivion, and making Homer 
himself tremble. It is one of the noblest sonnets in the language. 
Warton justly remarks, that the allegorical turn of it gives it a 
particular beauty, as a compliment to Spenser. Petrarch's 
paragon of fame and chastity, it is to be observed, is displaced 
for Queen Elizabeth ; who is implied in the character of the 
Fairy Queen: 

" Meth ought I saw the grave where Laura lay 
Within that temple, where the vestal flame 
Was wont to burn ; and passing by that way 
To see that buried dust of living fame, 
Whose tomb fair Love and fairer Virtue kept, 
All suddenly I saw the Fairy Queen ; 
At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept, 
And from henceforth those Graces were not seen, 
For they this Queen attended ; in whose stead 
Oblivion laid him down on Laura' } s hearse : — 
Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed, 
And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did perse ; 
Where Homer's spright did tremble all for grief, 
And cursed the access of that celestial thief." 

We have marked some of these lines in Italics ; but indeed the 
whole might have been so marked. 

Sir Henry Wotton, James the First's ambassador to Venice, 
afterwards Provost of Eton College, really united those two 
extremes of a taste for business and retirement, which Sir 
Walter's less tender nature could only combine in fancy. He 
was author of the famous definition of an ambassador (" An 
honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country"), and 
of the no less true epitaph which he desired to be put on his 
tombstone, Hie jacet hnjus sentential, &c. Here lies the first 

12 



178 OF DECEASED STATESMEN WHO HAVE WRITTEN VERSES. 

author of this sentence, " The itch of disputation is the scab of 
the church;" — one of those rare sayings, the apparent coarseness 
of which is vindicated by the refinement and worthiness of the 
feeling. This statesman, who was among the first to hail the 
genius of Milton, was author of several graceful poems, touching 
for their thoughtfulness and goodness. One of the most admired, 
which is to be found in many collections, begins 

" How happy is he born and taught, 
Who serveth not another's will." 

Lord Falkland, the romantic adherent of Charles the First, 
but friend of all parties, and tender-hearted desirer of peace, left 
some poems which are to be found in Nichols's Collection, vol. i. 
p. 236, and vol. viii. p. 247. The memory of Sir Richard 
Fanshaw's diplomatic talents would have been swallowed up in 
the reputation of the translator of Guarini's Pastor Fido, had 
not an account of him been written by that sweet amazon, his 
wife, who (unknown to him) fought by his side on board- ship in 
the disguise of a cabin-boy. But we now come to the great wit 
and partisan, Andrew Marvell, whose honesty baffied the arts of 
the Stuarts, and whose pamphlets and verses had no mean hand 
in helping to put an end to their dynasty. Marvell unites wit 
with earnestness and depth of sentiment, beyond any miscellaneous 
w T riter in the language. His firm partisanship did not hinder him 
being of the party of all mankind, and doing justice to what was 
good in the most opposite characters. In a panegyric on Cromwell 
he has taken high gentlemanly occasion to record the dignity of 
the end of Charles the First : 

" So restless Cromwell could not cease 
In the inglorious arts of peace, 
But through adventurous war 
Urged his active star ; 

" And, like the threefold lightning, first 
Breaking the clouds where it was nurst, 
Did thorough his own side 
His fiery way divide ; 

" Then burning through the air he went, 
And palaces and temples rent, 
And Caesar' s head at last 
Did, through his laurels, blast. 

" 'Tis madness to resist or blame 
The face of angry Heaven's flame ; 
And if we would speak true, 
Much to the man is due, 



OF DECEASED STATESMEN WHO HAVE WRITTEN VERSES. 179 

"Who from his private garden, where 
He liv'd reserved and austere, 
(As if his highest plot 
To plant the bergamot,) 

" Could by industrious valour climb 
To ruin the great work of time. 
And cast the kingdoms old 
Into another mould. 

* # # # 

" What field of all the civil wars, 
Where his were not the deepest scars ? 
And Hampton shows what part 
He had of wiser art: 

" Where twining subtle fears with hope 
He wove a net of such a scope, 
That Charles himself might chase 
To Clarisbrook's narrow case ; 

" That thence the royal actor borne 

The tragic scaffold might adorn, 

While round the armed bands 

Did clap their bloody hands. 

"He nothing common did, or mean, 
Upon that memorable scene, 
But with his keener eye 
The axe's edge did try; 

" Nor calVd the gods with vulgar spite 
To vindicate his helpless right, 
But bow'd, his comely head 
Down, as upon a bed." 

The emphatic cadence of this couplet, 

"Bow'd his comely head 
Down, as upon a bed," 

is in the best taste of his friend Milton. 

Sir William Temple wrote verses with a spirit beyond the 
fashion of his time, as may be seen by some translations from 
Virgil in Nichols s Collection, fresher, to our taste, than Dryden's. 
Halifax has got into the British Poets. Somers was among the 
translators of Garth's Ovid. Even miserly Pulteney was a verse- 
man ; — to say nothing of flighty Hanbury Williams and crawling 
Dodington. Bolingbroke, among other small poems, addressed 
one of singularly good advice for a man of his character to a 
mistress of his, — probably the same of whom a strange affecting 



180 OF DECEASED STATESMEN WHO HAVE WBITTEN VEBSEg* 

anecdote is told in the Memoirs of the late Bishop of Norwich, 
recently published.* 

Take the melancholy taste of this anecdote out of your 
mouth, dear reader, with the following effusion from the pen of 
the great Lord Peterborough, full of those animal spirits which 
he retained at the age of seventy- seven, and of a love which 
manifested itself to nearly as late a period. It is on the celebrated 
Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk, supposed mistress 
of George the Second, — famous among her friends for the union 
of sweet temper with sincerity : — 

" I said to my heart, between sleeping and waking, 
' Thou wild thing, that always are leaping or aching, 
What black, brown, or fair, in what clime, in what nation, 
By turns has not taught thee a pit-a-patation ? ' 

" Thus accused, the wild thing gave this sober reply: — 
' See the heart without motion, though Celia pass by ! 
Not the beauty she has, not the wit that she borrows, 
Give the eye any joys, or the heart any sorrows. 

" ' When our Sappho appears — she, whose wit so refined 
I am forced to applaud with the rest of mankind — 
Whatever she says is with spirit and fire ; 
Ev'ry word I attend, but I only admire. 

" ( Prudentia as vainly w r ould put in her claim, 
Ever gazing on Heaven, though man is her aim ; 
J Tis love, not devotion, that turns up her eyes — 
Those stars of this world are too good for the skies. 

" ' But Chloe so lively, so easy, so fair, 
Her wit so genteel, without art, without care ; 
When she comes in my way — the motion, the pain, 
The leapings, the achings, return all again.' 

" O wonderful creature ! a woman of reason ! 
Never grave out of pride, never gay out of season ; 
When so easy to guess, who this angel should be, 
Would one think Mrs. Howard ne'er dreamt it was she ? " 

Poetical quotations so soon carry an article to great length, 
that we are sorry we must cut the present one short ; which we 
shall do with one of the most interesting as well as latest speci- 

* She came to his house one day, would not be denied by the porter, 
and bursting into his room, threw down a purse full of gold, exclaiming in 
tears, " There are my wretched earnings — take them — and may God bless 
you." Saying which, she departed. There is a mystery in the story ; for 
what could Bolingbroke want with a purse of gold, and from such a 
quarter ? But there is possibly a truth of some kind in it, and evidence 
that he had a better heart to deal with than his own. 



OF DECEASED STATESMEN WHO HAVE WEITTEN VERSES. 181 

mens of our subject, produced in advanced life by a nobleman who 
possessed and deserved the good opinion of all parties, for he 
combined the good qualities of all, — the political energy and 
generous hospitality of the Tories, the liberal opinions of the best 
of the "Whigs, and the universal sympathy of the Radical. We 
hardly need add for any one's information, that we mean Lord 
Holland. The more than elegant, the cordial vers de socie'te of 
his uncle, Charles Fox (we allude particularly to his lines on 
Mrs. Crewe), the art and festivity of those of Sheridan, and the 
witty mockery of Canning's, are too well known to warrant repeti- 
tion ; and, generally speaking, they belong also to the conven- 
tionalities of a time gone by, and not likely to return. But there 
is a higher and more lasting aspiration in the modest effusion of 
the noble lord ; nor do we know anything more touching in the 
sophisticated life to which such men must be more or less subject, 
than this evidence, on the part of a statesman of his years and 
experience, of his having preserved a young heart and a thought- 
ful conscience : 

SOXXET BY LORD HOLLAND, OX READIXG " PARADISE REGAIXED." 
1830. 

" Homer and Dryden, nor unfrequently 

The playful Ovid or the Italian's song 

That held entranced my youthful thoughts so long 
With dames and loves and deeds of chivalry, 
E'en now delight me. From the noisy throng 

Thither I fly to sip the sweets that lie 

Enclosed in tender est folds of poesy. 
Oft as for ease my weary spirits long. 
But when, recoiling from the fouler scene 

Of sordid vice or rank atrocious crime, 
My sickening soul pants for the pure serene 

Of loftier regions, quitting tales and rhyme, 
I turn to Milton ; and his heights sublime, 
By me too long unsought, I strive to climb." * 

* The present administration is more literary and poetical than any 
which the nation has seen. The public are- familiar with some distin- 
guished proofs of it ; and others of a graceful and interesting nature might 
easily be adduced. But though to omit all allusion to the circumstance, at 
the close of an article like the foregoing, might have been thought strange 
and invidious, to dwell upon it might subject the writer at this moment to 
very painful suspicions. 



182 ) 



FEMALE SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND. 

REAL CHARACTER OF LADY JANE GREY — EXCUSES FOR " BLOODY MARY " 
— ELIZABETH, WHEN YOUNG — ANNE AND THE DUCHESS OF MARL- 
BOROUGH — ACCESSION OF HER PRESENT MAJESTY. 

The accession of a young Queen to the throne,* especially under 
existing circumstances, renders it not uninteresting to glance at 
the history and characters of her female predecessors. A word 
also, though it be a word only (for how, either in delicacy, or 
without better knowledge, can we say more ?), cannot but be 
said of the youthful Monarch herself, whose interest was summed 
up the other day in an admirable and statesmanlike article in the 
Morning Chronicle, as consisting in being to Political Keforma- 
tion what Elizabeth was to Religious, — its willing and glorious 
star, not its foolish torch, attempting to frighten it back. If 
volumes were written on the subject, they could not say more 
than that single analogy. Our feelings, however, will lead us to 
add another word or two before we conclude ; but we shall observe 
the order of time, and look back first. 

The females who have reigned in this country previously to 
her Majesty, are Mary, Elizabeth, and Anne ; for though the 
second Mary, wife of William the Third, was Queen in her own 
right, circumstances and her disposition left the exercise of 
power entirely to her husband ; and as to poor Lady Jane Grey, 
to whom Mr. Turner in his History of England has not improperly 
devoted a chapter as " Queen Jane," she did but reign long 
enough (ten or eleven days) to undo the romance of her character 
and quarrel with her husband. The world, with an honourable 
credulity, have been in the habit of taking Lady Jane Grey and 
Lord Guildford Dudley for a pair of mere innocent lovers and 
victims. Victims they were, but not without a weakness little 
amiable on one side, if not on both.f 

* Written in 1837. 

t " Mild and modest, and young, as she unquestionably was,*-' says 
Turner, " the spirit of royalty and power had within twenty-four hours 
gained such an ascendancy in her studious mind, that she heard the intima- 
tion of her husband being elevated to the same dignity as herself with 



FEMALE SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND. 183 

Of the first Mary, long and too deservedly known by the title 
of " Bloody Mary " (which the truer justice of a right Christian 
philosophy has latterly been the means of discontinuing), we con- 
fess we can never think without commiseration. Unamiable she 
certainly was, and deplorably bigoted. She sent two hundred 
and eighty-four people to the stake during a short reign of five 
years and four months ; which, upon an average, is upwards of 
four a week ! She was withal plain, petty of stature, ill- coloured, 
and fierce-eyed, with a voice almost as deep as a man's ; had a 
bad blood ; and ended with having nobody to love her, not even 
the bigots in whose cause she lost the love of her people.* But 
let us recollect whose daughter she was, and under what circum- 
stances born and bred. She inherited the tyrannical tendencies 
of her father Henry the Eighth, the melancholy and stubbornness 
of her mother Katherine ; and she had the misfortune, say rather 
the unspeakable misery, of being taught to think it just to com- 
mit her fellow-creatures to the flames, for doing no more than 
she stubbornly did herself ; namely, vindicate the right of having 

vexation and displeasure. As soon as she was left alone with him, she 
remonstrated against this measure ; and after much dispute, he agreed to 
wait till she herself should make him king, and hy an act of Parliament. 
But even this concession, to take this dignity as a boon from her, did not 
satisfy the sudden expansion of her new-born ambition. She soon sent for 
the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, and informed them that she was 
willing to create her husband a duke, but would never consent to make him 
king. This declaration brought down his mother in great fury to her, 
with all the force of enraged language and imperious disdain. The violent 
duchess scolded her young queen, and roused the mortified Dudley to 
forsake her chamber of repose, and to vow that he would accept no title 
but the regal honour." — History of England, as quoted further on, p. 186. 
Jane's best claim to the respect of posterity must remain with her taste for 
literature. She had the good sense to feel, and avow, that there was no 
comfort like her books in adversity. Her nature seems in other respects to 
have had a formal insipidity, excitable only by stimulants which did not 
agree with it. 

* Michele, the Venetian Ambassador, in the account which he wrote of 
her (see Ellis's Letters, mentioned a little further on), describes her as 
" moderately pretty," according to the translator. But there is reason to 
doubt the correctness of a version which, in speaking of Elizabeth's com- 
plexion, renders " olivastro " by " sallow ; " — at least that is not the usual 
English acceptation of the meaning of the word " olive-coloured." It is 
also opposed by the context, as will be seen presently ; and if Michele 
really meant to say that Mary was " moderately pretty," and did not use 
the words as good-naturedly implying something different, he goes counter 
to all which is understood of her face in history, and certainly to the prints 
of it, which are those of a melancholy and homely vixen. It is a pity the 
rest of the original had not been quoted, as well as a few sentences," 



184 FEMALE SOVEREIGNS .OF ENGLAND. 

their own opinion. Becollect above all, that she was not happy ; 
— that it was not in gaiety or sheer nnfeelingness that she did 
what she thus frightfully thought to be her duty. She suffered 
bitterly herself ; and suffered too, not merely for herself and her 
own personal sorrows, but sharply for her sense of the public 
welfare, and that of men's very souls. In sending people to the 
stake, she fancied (with the dreadful involuntary blasphemy taught 
her by her creed) that the measure was necessary, in order to 
save millions from eternal wretchedness ; and if in this perverted 
sense of duty there was a willing participation of the harsher 
parts of her character, she had sensibility enough to die of a 
broken heart.— Peace and pardon to her memory. Which of 
us might not have done the same, had we been as unhappily 
situated ? 

Both Mary and her sister Elizabeth passed the earlier portion 
of their lives in singular vicissitudes of quiet and agitation, — 
each unwelcome to their father, — each at times tranquilly pursu- 
ing their studies, and each persecuted for their very different 
opinions ; — Mary by her Protestant brother Edward, and Elizabeth 
by her Catholic sister Mary. At one time they were treated like 
princesses, at another as if they were aliens in blood, or had 
been impudently palmed upon it. Now they were brought before 
councils to answer for opinions that put their lives in jeopardy ; 
now riding about with splendid retinues, and flattered by courtly 
expectants. How different from the retired and apparently 
beautiful manner in which the present Queen has been brought 
up, safe in her pleasant home in Kensington Gardens, and when- 
ever she moves about, moving in unostentatious comfort, and 
linked with a loving mother. Oh ! never may she forget, that it 
was free and reforming opinions which brought her this great 
good ; and that if Elizabeth had gone back with her age, instead 
of advancing with it, and succumbed to the anti-popular part of 
the priesthood and the aristocracy, she, the secure, and tranquil, 
and popular Victoria, might this moment have been dragged 
before councils as Elizabeth was, or been forced to struggle with 
insurrections and public hatred, like Mary.* 

* The following (abridged by Ellis from Hollinshed) is a specimen of 
the treatment to which heiresses to the throne were liable in those days : — 
" The day after the breaking out of Wyat's rebellion was known at court," 
he says, " the Queen sent three of her council, Sir Richard Southwell, Sir 
Edward Hastings, and Sir Thomas Cornwallis, to Ash bridge, with a strong 
guard, to escort the Princess Elizabeth, who lay sick there, to London, 



FEMALE SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND. 185 

There are not so many records of Mary's youth as of that of 
her sister. She was brought up in the same accomplishments of 
music and scholarship, but had not so many ; and she -underwent 
similar disadvantages of occasional neglect, but not to such 
extent. 

Elizabeth, to use an old phrase, we can " fetch " almost 
f* from her cradle ; " indeed quite so, if we go to Hollinshed or 
to Shakspeare, who have recorded her christening. After her 
mother's downfall she was very carelessly treated. In Ellis's 

When they arrived, at ten o'clock at night, the Princess had gone to rest, 
and refused to see them : they, however, entered her chamber rudely, when 
her Grace, being not a little amazed, said unto them, ' Is the haste such 
that it might not have pleased you to come to-morrow in the morning ? ' 
They made answer, that they were right sorry to see her in such a case. 
' And I,' quoth she, ' am not glad to see you here at this time of night.' 
TVhereunto they answered that they came from the Queen to do their 
message and duty ; that it was the Queen's pleasure that her Grace should 
be in London on a given day, and that the orders were to bring her ' quick 
or dead.' The Princess complained of the harshness of their commission ; 
but Dr. Owen and Dr. TVendie deciding that she might travel without 
danger of life, her Grace was informed that the Queen had sent her own 
litter for her accommodation, and that the next morning she would be 
removed. She reached Redburne in a very feeble condition the first night ; 
on the second she rested at Sir Ralph Rowlet's house, at St. Albans ; on 
the third at Mr. Dod's, at Mimmes ; and on the fourth at Highgate, where 
she stayed a night and a day. She was thence conveyed to the Court, 
where, remaining a close prisoner for a whole fortnight, she saw neither 
king, nor queen, nor lord, nor friend. On the Friday before Palm Sunday, 
Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, with nineteen others of the council, came 
from the Queen, and charged her with being concerned not only in Wyat's 
conspiracy, but in the rebellion of Sir Peter Carew. They then declared 
unto her the Queen's pleasure that she should go to the' Tower till the 
matter could be further traced and examined. Against this she remon- 
strated, protesting her innocence, hut the lords answered that there was no 
remedy. Her own attendants were then dismissed, and those of the Queen 
placed about her. * * # * * 

" Upon the succeeding day, Palm Sunday, an order was issued through- 
out London that every one should keep the church and carry his palm ; 
during which time the Princess was carried to the Tower. 

" The landing at the traitor's gate she at first refused ; but one of the 
lords stepped back into the barge to urge her coming out, * and because it 
did then rain/ says Hollinshed, ' he offered to her his cloak, which she 
(putting it back with her hand with a good dash) refused. Then coming 
out, with one foot upon the stair, she said, 'Here landeth as true a subject, 
being prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs ; and before thee, O God, I 
speak it, having none other friends but thee alone.' 

" To her prison- chamber, it is stated, she was brought with great 
reluctance ; and the locking ancl bolting the doors upon her caused dismay. 
She was, moreover, for some time denied even the liberty of exercise. 



186 FEMALE BOVEBEIGNS OF ENGLAND. 

Letters* is one from her governess, Lady Brian, to Lord Crom- 
well, asking for instructions concerning her, and complaining 
that she is " put from her degree," and has neither gown nor 
petticoat, "nor no maner of linnin for smokes." She was 
taught to write by the famous Ascham ; and her penmanship was 
accounted beautiful. From what we have seen of it, it looks 
more masculine than beautiful. Indeed her signature is tall and 
tremendous enough to have been that of a giantess. 

At the age of fourteen, in her brother Edward's reign, 
Elizabeth was under the care of her father's widow, Catherine 
Parr, who then lived at Chelsea in one of the royal manor-houses, 
occupying part of the site of the present Cheyne Row ; a spot 
that has become curious from the boisterous gallantry that she 
seems to have permitted from Catherine's husband, the Lord 
Admiral Seymour, brother of the Protector Somerset, — a couple 
of ambitious men, who both lost their heads in those beautiful 
aristocratic times. Mr. Turner, agreeably to his very Protestant 
but doubtless sincere good opinion of Elizabeth, revolts from the 
unceremonious lovemaking of Seymour, and betwixt partiality and 
modesty, suppresses the more awkward details ; f Dr. Lingard, 
the Catholic historian, sternly brings them forth, and does not 
disguise his faith in them. J As we have no claim in this place 
to the court- of-law privileges of history, we shall not repeat these 
passages ; neither do we hold with either of these respectable 
writers, in the view they take of Elizabeth's character in reference 

Early in the following May the Lord Chandos, who was then the Constable 
of the Tower, was discharged of his office, and Sir Henry Bedingfield 
appointed in his room. ' He brought with him,' says the historian, * an 
hundred souldiers in blue coats, wherewith the Princess was marvellously 
discomfited, and demanded of such as were about whether the Lady Jane's 
scaffold were taken away or no — fearing by reason of their coming, least 
she should have played her part.' Warton says she asked this question 
' with her usual liveliness ; ' but there was probably less in it of vivacity 
than he supposed. Sixty years before, upon the same spot, Sir James 
Tyrell had been suddenly substituted for Sir Robert Brackenbury, prepara- 
tory to the disappearance of the Princes of the House of York. Happily 
for Elizabeth her fears were groundless ; Sir Henry Bedingfield accom- 
panied her to a less gloomy prison in the Palace of Woodstock." 

* Original Letters, illustrative of English History, &c. With Notes 
and Illustrations. By Henry Ellis, &c. &c. Second Series. Vol. ii. 
p. 78. 

f History of the Beigns of Edward the Sixth, Mary, and Elizabeth. 
By Sharon Turner. Vol. iv. p. 148. 

% History of England, &c. By the Rev. John Lingard. Vol. iv. 
p. 401. 



FEMALE SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND, 187 

to matters of this nature. Times are to be considered, — manners, 
— customs, — and a thousand questions still existing, too import- 
ant to discuss here, but all very necessary before we arrive at the 
candid conclusions of a philosophy which sees justice done to all. 
If Elizabeth partook of more of the weaknesses common to human 
nature than her eulogizers are willing to allow, she possessed 
more virtues than are granted her by her enemies ; and whatever 
may be the pettier details of her history, it is not to be disputed 
that she was a great Queen, fit to be surrounded with the men 
whose merit she had the sense to discern. She perceived the 
statesman in Cecil before she came to the throne, and she retained 
him with her till he died. She partook of her father's imperious- 
ness, and of her mother's gayer blood ; but she inherited also the 
greater brain of her grandfather Henry the Seventh, to whom 
she is said to have borne a likeness ; and the mixture of all three 
produced a Sovereign, not indeed free from very petty defects (for 
she was excessively fond of flattery, jealous even of a fine gown, 
and so fond of dress herself, that she would change it daily for 
months together), but great in the main, able to understand 
the true interests of her country, and sovereign mistress even of 
the favourites who touched her heart, and who could bring tears 
into her proud eyes. 

Elizabeth, when she came to the throne, was not older than 
five-and-twenty, and what would now be familiarly called " a fine 
girl." She is thus described, just before that event, by the 
Venetian Ambassador :— 

" My Lady Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII. and Ann Boleyne, 
was born in the year 1 533. She is a lady of great elegance both of body 
and mind, although her face may rather be called pleasing than beautiful ; 
she is tall and well made ; her complexion fine, though rather sallow ; * 
her eyes, but above all her hands, which she takes care not to conceal, are 
of superior beauty. In her knowledge of the Greek and Italian languages 
she surpasses the Queen. Her spirits and understanding are admirable, as 
she has proved by her conduct in the midst of suspicion and danger, when 
she concealed her religion and comported herself like a good Catholic. 
She is proud and dignified in her manners ; for though her mother's con- 
dition is well known to her, she is also aware that this mother of hers was 
united to the King in wedlock, with the sanction of the holy church, and 

* " Bella came, ancorche olivastra" But how can a fine complexion 
be thought " sallow ? " and why should not olivastro mean " swarthish, 
olive-coloured " (the colour of the fruit, not the tree), as the good old 
Italian dictionary has it ? We should thus recognize a clear brown com- 
plexion, quite compatible with the epithet " fine." 



188 FEMALE SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND. 

the concurrence of the primate of the realm ; and though misled with 
regard to her religion, she is conscious of having acted with good faith : 
nor can this latter circumstance reflect upon her birth, since she was born 
in the same faith with that professed by the Queen. Her father's affection 
she shared at least in equal measure with her sister, and the King con- 
sidered them equally in his will, settling on both of them 10,000 scudi per 
annum. Moreover, the Queen, though she hates her most sincerely, yet 
treats her in public with every outward sign of affection and regard, and 
never converses with her but on pleasing and agreeable subjects. She has 
also contrived to ingratiate herself with the King of Spain, through whose 
influence the Queen is prevented from bastardizing her, as she certainly has 
it in her power to do by means of an act of Parliament, and which would 
exclude her from the throne. It is believed that, but for this interference 
of the King, the Queen would, without remorse, chastise her in the severest 
manner ; for whatever plots against the Queen are discovered, my lady 
Elizabeth, or some of her people, may always be sure to be mentioned 
among the persons concerned in them." 

It may be added, as a matter not without its interest in the 
present moment, that Elizabeth and Victoria are the only Queens 
who have come to the throne young. Mary was thirty-seven 
years of age, and Anne thirty-eight. 

Anne was more the daughter of her mother Anne Hide, Cla- 
rendon's daughter, than of her father James the Second. In the 
portrait of her sister Queen Mary, the wife of William the Third, 
yon can trace a likeness to the melancholy countenance of James. 
Anne was the daughter of her mother's joviality, at least as far as 
the indulgence of the senses was concerned, — round and fat, 
and inclined by enjoyment to be good-humoured and indulgent. 
She had brown hair and a fresh complexion : in short, was a 
regular Hide, with the exception of the pride, irritability, and 
superior intellect of that family ; and only possessing enough of 
her father's stubbornness, to enable her to turn round against 
excess of presumption, and rescue herself from the last conse- 
quences of a habit of acquiescence. Lady Stafford, the wild 
daughter of a wild father (Rochester), talked of " orgies " in her 
palace, — most likely an extravagant misrepresentation ; but what- 
ever the orgies amounted to, they must have arisen from the weak 
moments generated too often in the Queen's latter years by a 
habit, which it is unpleasant to allude to in connexion with a 
woman, and which care and temperament, and perhaps her very 
easiness of intercourse, conspired to bring upon her. Drinking 
of some kind or other is resorted to as a refuge from care in 
millions of more instances than the world is aware of; and per- 
haps, till things right themselves in society to more final purpose, 



FEMALE SOVEKElGNS OF ENGLAND. 189 

the wonder is, that the habit, however dangerous and degrading, 
is not still more extensive. 

Of Anne's early years some curious accounts have been left 
us by the wife of the great Duke of Marlborough, — for a long 
time her imperious favourite, if two such words can go properly 
together. The truth is, Anne's heaviness and luxuriousness of 
temperament made her glad of a dictatress, so long as the juris- 
diction only supplied it with what it wanted. It helped out her 
slowness of speech, and saved her a world of trouble and manage- 
ment. The Duchess reigned in this way so long, that she at 
length forgot she had a queen for her slave ; and, in spite of 
habit, good-nature, and fear, royalty turned round in anger, and 
got rid of its tyrant by dint of a singular exercise of one of 
Anne's very defects, — paucity of words. The favourite had un- 
luckily intimated in one of her angry letters, that she did not 
want an answer to a remonstrance made by her ; and the Queen, 
seizing hold of this expression at their final interview, kept 
repeating it to all which the Duchess alleged : — " You desired no 
answer, and you shall have none." This doggedness, in James 
the Second's style, so exasperated the once all-powerful favourite 
(though it was in reality nothing but a desperate refuge from want 
of words) that she ventured to threaten her Majesty with the con- 
sequences of her " inhumanity ; " and so they parted for ever. 
This is the whole real amount of the matter, without its being 
necessary to enter into those would-be political circumstances, 
which, in almost' all such cases, are only the apparent, not real 
causes of action. 

The Duchess in her old age, with the unabated overweening- 
ness of her character, gave the world what she called an 
"Account of her Conduct;" purely, as she said, to save her 
fair fame after death ; but the consequence was, as it always 
must be when such things are written by such persons (for their 
character is sure to break through all disguises), that the world 
were confirmed in the opinion which they entertained of her 
vanity and presumption. There is no doubt, however, that all 
the facts we are about to quote are true, however different were 
the conclusions they suggested to the world from what the writer 
expected. And after being in possession of Anne's general cha- 
racter, we feel that we are here made spectators of it at its 
earliest and most candid period : 

" The beginning of the Princess's kindness for me," says the Duchess, 
" had a much earlier date than my entrance into her service. My promo- 



190 FEMALE SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND. 

tion to this honour was wholly owing to impressions she had before 
received to my advantage ; we had used to play together when she was 
child, and she even then expressed a particular fondness for me. This 
inclination increased with our years. I was often at court, and the 
Princess always distinguished me by the pleasure she took to honour me 
preferably to others, with her conversation and confidence. In all her 
parties for amusement, I was sure, by her choice, to be one ; and so 
desirous she became of having me always near her, that, upon her marriage 
with the Prince of Denmark in 1683, it was, at her own earnest request to 
her father, I was made one of the ladies of her bed-chamber. 

" What conduced to render me the more agreeable to her in this station 
was, doubtless, the dislike she had conceived to most of the other persons 
about her ; and particularly to her first lady of the bed-chamber, the 
Countess of Clarendon — a lady whose discourse and manner (though the 
Princess thought they agreed very well together) could not possibly recom- 
mend her to so young a mistress, for she looked like a mad woman, and 
talked like a scholar. Indeed, her Highness's court was throughout so 
oddly composed, that I think it would be making myself no great compli- 
ment if I should say, her choosing to spend more of her time with me than 
with any of her other servants did no discredit to her taste. Be that as it 
will, it is certain she at length distinguished me by so high a place in her 
favour as perhaps no person ever arrived at a higher with Queen or 
Princess. And, if from hence I may draw any glory, it is, that I both 
obtained and held this place without the assistance of flattery — a charm 
which, in truth, her inclination for me, together with my unwearied appli- 
cation to serve and amuse her, rendered needless ; but which, had it been 
otherwise, my temper and turn of mind would never have suffered me to 
employ. 

" Young as I was when I first became this high favourite, I laid it clown 
for a maxim, that flattery was falsehood to my trust, and ingratitude to my 
greatest friend ; and that I did not deserve so much favour if I could not 
venture the loss of it by speaking the truth, and by preferring the real 
interest of my mistress before the pleasing her fancy or the sacrificing to 
her passion. From this rule I never swerved. And though my temper 
and my notions in most things were widely different from those of the 
Princess, yet, during a long course of years, she was so far from being 
displeased with me for openly speaking my sentiments, that she sometimes 
professed a desire, and even added a command, that it should always be 
continued, promising never to be offended at it, but to love me the better 
for my frankness. * * * * * 

" Kings and princes, for the most part, imagine they have a dignity 
peculiar to their birth and station, which ought to raise them above all 
connexion of friendship with an inferior. Their passion is, to be admired 
and feared, to have subjects awfully obedient and servants blindly obse- 
quious to their pleasure. Friendship is an offensive word : it imports a 
kind of equality between the parties — it suggests nothing to the mind of 
crowns or thrones, high titles or immense revenues, fountains of honour or 
fountains of riches, prerogatives which the possessors would have always 
uppermost in the thoughts of those who are permitted to approach them. 

" The Princess had a different taste. A friend was what she most 
coveted ; and for the sake of friendship (a relation which she did not dis- 
dain to have with me) she was fond even of that equality which she thought 



FEMALE SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND, 191 

belonged to it. She grew uneasy to be treated by me with the form and 
ceremony due to her rank, nor could she bear from me the sound of words 
• which implied in them distance and superiority. It was this turn of mind 
which made her one day propose to me that, whenever I should happen to 
be absent from her, we might in all our letters write ourselves by feigned 
names, such as would import nothing of distinction or rank between us. 
Morley and Freeman were the names her fancy hit upon, and she left me 
to choose by which of them I would be called. My frank, open temper 
naturally led me to pitch upon Freeman, and so the Princess took the 
other ; and from this time Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman began to con- 
verse as equals, made so by affection and friendship. * * 

" During her father's whole reign she kept her court as private as she 
could, consistent with her station. What were the designs of that unhappy 
prince everybody knows. They came soon to show themselves undisguised, 
and attempts were made to draw his daughter into them. The King, 
indeed, used no harshness with her. He only discovered his wishes by 
putting into her hands some books and papers, which he hoped might 
induce her to a change of religion ; and, had she had any inclination that 
way, the chaplains about her were such divines as could have said but 
little in defence of their own religion, or to secure her against the pretences 
of Popery, recommended to her by a father and a King. * * 

" Upon the landing of the Prince of Orange, in 1688, the King went 
down to Salisbury to his army, and the Prince of Denmark with him ; but 
the news quickly came from thence that the Prince of Denmark had left 
the King and was gone over to the Prince of Orange, and that the King 
was coming back to London. This put the Princess into a great fright. 
She sent for me, told me her distress, and declared, that rather than see her 
father she would jump out at window. This was her very expression. 

" A little before, a note had been left with me to inform me where I 
might find the Bishop of London (who in that critical time absconded), if 
her Royal Highness should have occasion for a friend. The Princess, on 
this alarm, immediately sent me to the Bishop. I acquainted him with 
her resolution to leave the court, and to put herself under his care. It was 
hereupon agreed that, when he had advised with his friends in the city, 
he should come about midnight in a hackney-coach to the neighbourhood 
of the Cockpit, in order to convey the Princess to some place where she 
might be private and safe. 

" The Princess went to bed at the usual time, to prevent suspicion. I 
came to her soon after ; and by the back-stairs which went down from her 
closet, her Royal Highness, my Lady Fitzharding, and I, with one servant, 
walked to the coach, where we found the Bishop and the Earl of Dorset. 
They conducted us that night to the Bishop's house in the city, and the 
next day to my Lord Dorset's at Copt Hall. From thence we went to the 
Earl of Northampton's, and from thence to Nottingham, where the country 
gathered about the Princess ; nor did she think herself safe till she saw 
that she was surrounded by the Prince of Orange's friends." 

The Duchess of Marlborough's influence over Anne, beginning 
thus in childhood, lasted perhaps for thirty years, terminating 
only in the year 1707, which was the forty-third of the Queen's 
age. Doubtless the course of time, and the shifting interests of 



192 FEMALE SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND* 

policy, conspired to render the Queen more uneasy under he: 
dictation. Eoyalty naturally loves what inclines most to royalty, 
when its apprehensions of danger from the Tory principle are 
gone by ; and Anne did not live in times when to side with the 
propensity was as perilous as it would be now. Nor if it had 
been, did she possess brain enough to discern it. Accordingly, 
in proportion as the Whigs and the Duke of Marlborough ceased 
to be necessary to her, the Duchess's long domination became 
less endurable, and we have seen how it terminated. But still 
the main cause lay in the favourite's inability to make those con- 
cessions to circumstances, which she exacted of everybody else. 
Anne's tone of fondness continued almost till the moment of 
rupture ; nor is it easy to assert, though it is impossible to help 
concluding, that the fear of discontinuing it was mixed up with its 
apparent sincerity. The following are specimens of the curious 
letters written by " Mrs. Morley," from first to last, which the 
Duchess gave to the world : — 

" Dear Mrs. Freeman — farewell. I hope in Christ you will never think 
more of leaving me, for I would be sacrificed to do you the least service,, 
and nothing but death can ever make me part with you." 

***** 

" I really long to know how my dear Mrs. Freeman got home ; and now 

I have this opportunity of writing, she must give me leave to tell her, if she 

should ever be so cruel as to leave her faithful Mrs. Morley, she will rob 

her of all the joy and quiet of her life ; for if that day should come I could 

never enjoy a happy minute, and I swear to you I would shut myself up, 

and never see a creature." 

***** 

The following is an entire letter which appears to have been 
written in the course of the year in which they separated : — 

" Saturday night. 
"My dear Mrs. Freeman — 

" I cannot go to bed without renewing a request that I have often 
made, that you would banish all unkind and unjust thoughts of your poor, 
unfortunate, faithful Morley, which I saw by the glimpse I had of you ' 
yesterday, you were full of. Indeed, I do not deserve them ; and if you 
could see my heart, you would find it as sincere, as tender, and as passion- 
ately fond of you as ever, and as truly sensible of your kindness in telling 
me your mind freely upon all occasions. Nothing shall ever alter me. 
Though we have the misfortune to differ in some things, I w r ill ever be the 
same to my dear, dear Mrs. Freeman, who, I do assure you once more, I am 
more tenderly and sincerely hers than it is possible ever to express." 

But Mrs. Freeman had discovered that her Majesty ventured 
to have some regard for an humble cousin of hers (Mrs. Masham) 



FEMALE SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND. 193 

as well as for herself, winch she pronounced, on both sides, to be 
the most ungrateful and amazing enormity ever heard of. Hence 
she fell in a rage, and the rage roused the poor Queen, and so 
came the catastrophe. 

The nation has now another Queen on the throne, whom it has 
hitherto known in youth, and youth only. It knows her but 
publicly, however ; it cannot be said to know anything of her real 
character ; and probably that character is known to very few, if 
completely even to those ; so truly feminine is the retirement in 
which her Majesty has been brought up. If the report, however, 
of her mother's intellectual and moral qualities be well founded 
(and the fact of that tranquil education says much for it), we may 
hope that England will experience the advantage, for the first 
time, of having a Queen brought up in a mother's arms, and in a 
manner at once feminine and wise. We may, in that case, look 
to seeing Womanhood on the throne in its best character, such as 
may give life and advancement to what is best and manliest in the 
hopes of the world. But upon this prospect must rest, for some 
time at any rate, the awful doubt arising from all that is hitherto 
known of the unhappy chances of royal spoiling ; which chances, 
however, should not prevent us from hoping and thinking the 
best, as long as we are prepared for disappointment, and commit 
no offences ourselves, either of adulation or the reverse. Her 
Majesty's position, at all events, is a very serious one, both as 
regards us and herself; and her youth, her sex, her manifest 
sensibility (whether for good or evil), her common nature as a 
fellow-creature, and all those circumstances which will make her 
reign so blest beyond example, if she turn out well, and so very 
piteous and unpopular if otherwise, but of which neither she nor 
any one else will, or can, have been responsible for the first causes 
(those lying hidden in the mystery of all things), combine to 
make every reflecting heart regard her with a mixture of pitying 
tenderness and hopeful respect, and cordially to pray,- that in the 
only good and final, that is to say, peaceful sense of the word, it 
may see her fair figure continually hovering over the advancing 
orb, like the embodied angel of the meaning of her name.* 

* Since this article was written, we need not say how happily the 
nation's wishes have been confirmed. 



13 



( 194 ) 



SOCIAL MORALITY. 

SUCKLING AND BEN JONSON. 

CURIOUS INSTANCE OF VARIABILITY IN MORAL OPINION — POPE'S TRADI- 
TION OF SIR JOHN SUCKLING AND THE CARDS — NEW EDITION OF 

j BEN JONSON, AND SAMPLES OF THE GENIUS AND ARROGANCE OF 

THAT WRITER, WITH A SUMMARY OF HIS POETICAL CHARACTER. 

It is curious to see the opinion entertained in every successive 
age respecting the unimprovability or unalterableness of its 
prevailing theory of morals, compared with their actual fluctua- 
tion. The "philosopher owns with a sigh" (as Gibbon would 
have phrased it, — for we believe there is an ultimate preferment 
for mankind in this tendency to follow a fashion), that a court, a 
king, the example of a single ruling individual, can affect the 
virtues of an age far beyond the whole mass of their ordinary 
practisers, — at least, so as to give the moral colour to the period, 
and throw the bias in favour of this or that tendency. The staid 
habits of George III., in certain respects, produced a correspond- 
ing profession of them throughout the country ; but the case was 
different in the reigns of the Georges before him, who, dull indi- 
viduals as they were, kept mistresses like their sprightlier prede- 
cessors. Even William III. had a mistress. In Cromwell's time, 
the prevailing moral strength, or virtus, consisted in a sense of 
religion. It may be answered, that these fashions, as far as they 
were such, did not influence either the practice or opinions of 
conscientious men ; but our self-love would be mistaken in that 
conclusion. Our remote ancestors were not the less cannibals 
because v 7 e shudder at the idea of dining upon Jones ; neither 
would some very near ones fail to startle us with their opinions 
upon matters which, we take it for granted, they regarded in the 
same light as ourselves. No longer than a hundred years back, 
and in the mouth of no less a moralist than Pope, we find 
the following puzzling bit of information respecting Sir John 
Suckling :— 

" Suckling was an immoral man, as well as debauched." 
Now, where is the distinction, in our present moral system, 



SUCKLING AND BEN JONSON. 195 

between immorality and debauchery ? All immorality is not 
debauchery, but all debauchery we hold to be immoral. What 
could Pope mean ? 

Why, he meant that Sir John cheated at cards. Neither his 
drinking nor his gallantry were to be understood as affecting his 
moral character. It was the use of cards with marks upon them 
that was to deprive debauchery of its good name ! " The story 
of the French cards," continues Pope, in explanation of his above 
remark, " was told me by the late Duke of Buckingham ; and he 
had it from old Lady Dorset herself." 

We are by no means convinced, by the way, that Suckling 
gave into such a disgraceful practice, merely because the Duke of 
Buckingham was told so by " old Lady Dorset." 

" That lady," resumes the poet (he is talking to Spence, and 
these stories are from Spence's Anecdotes), " took a very odd 
pride in boasting of her familiarities with Sir John Suckling. 
She is the mistress and goddess in his poems ; and several of 
those pieces were given by herself to the printer. This the 
Duke of Buckingham used to give as one instance of the fond- 
ness she had to let the world know how well they were 
acquainted." 

" To be taken, to be seen, 
These have crimes accounted been." 

The age was not scrupulous about the fact, but it was held 
very wrong to mention it ; and hence Lady Dorset was accounted 
a loose speaker, and doubtless not to be quite trusted. The 
dishonest cards themselves did not affect the pride she took in the 
card-player. Query, how far such a woman was to be believed in 
anything ? But the most curious part of the business remains 
what it was — to wit, Pope's own discrepation of immorality from 
debauchery. And as the Reverend Mr. Spence expresses no 
amazement at the passage, it will be hardly unfair to conclude 
that he saw nothing in it to surprise him. We believe we have 
already observed somewhere, that Swift, who was a dignitary of 
the church, was intimate with the reputed mistresses of two 
kings, — the Countess of Suffolk, George the Second's favourite, 
and the Countess of Orkney, King William's. The latter he 
pronounced to be " the wisest woman he ever knew," as the 
former was declared by all her friends to be one of the most 
amiable. But we may see how little gallantry was thought ill of, 
in the epistolary correspondences of those times, Pope's included, 



196 SOCIAL MORALITY. 

and in the encouraging banter, for instance, which he gives on 
the subject to his friend Gay, whose whole life appears to have 
been passed in a good-humoured sensualism. See also how 
Pope, and Swift, and others, trumped up Lord Bolingbroke for a 
philosopher ! — a man who, besides being profound in nothing 
but what may be called the elegant extracts of common-place, 
was one of the most debauched of men of the world. 

As we have touched upon Spence's Anecdotes, we might as 
well look farther into the book, since it is a very fit one to notice 
in these articles, and occasions many a pleasant chat at a fireside. 
The late republication of the works of Ben Jonson has given a 
fresh interest to such remarks as the following : — 

" It was a general opinion (says Pope) that Ben Jonson and 
Shakspeare lived in enmity against one another. Betterton has 
assured me often, that there was nothing in it, and that such a 
supposition was founded only on the two parties, which in their 
lifetime listed under one, and endeavoured to lessen the character 
of the other mutually. Dryden used to think, that the verses 
Jonson made on Shakspeare's death had something of satire 
at the bottom ; for my part, I can't discover anything like it 
in them." 

We are now reading Ben Jonson through in Mr. Moxon's 
beautiful edition, and having finished nearly all his dramas, and 
not long since read his miscellaneous poems, and our memory 
serving us pretty well for what remains to be re-perused, our 
impression of him is, at all events, fresh upon us. 

A critic in the Times,* whose pen is otherwise so good as to 
make us regret its party bias, appears to us to have treated 
Jonson' s new editor, Mr. Barry Cornwall, with a very unjusti- 
fiable air of scorn and indignation, both as if he had no right to 
speak of Ben Jonson at all, and as if he possessed no merit 
as a writer himself. It is not necessary to the reputation of 
Mr. Cornwall that we should undertake to defend what such 
critics as Lamb and Hazlitt have admired. The writer of the 
beautiful Dramatic Sketches (which were the first to restore the 
quick impulsive dialogue of the old poets), and a greater number, 
of excellent songs than have been written by any man living 
except Mr. Moore, has surely every right in the world, dramatic 
and lyrical, to speak of Ben Jonson, unless you were to except 
that sympathy with his coarseness and his.lo.ve of the caustic, 
which, saving a poor verbal tact, and 9 worship of authority, was 

* 1839. 



SUCKLING AND BEN JONSON. 197 

the only qualification for a critical sense of him possessed by the 
petulant and presumptuous Gilford. But the Times' critic has 
been led perhaps to this depreciation of the new editor, by 
thinking he has greatly undervalued a favourite author : while, 
on the other hand, we ourselves cannot but think that Mr. Corn- 
wall, with all his admiration of him, has yet somewhat depreciated 
Ben Jonson in consequence of his over-valuement by others. It 
appears to us, that he does not do justice to the serious part of 
him, — to the grandeur, for example, which is often to be found 
in his graver writing, both as to thought and style, sometimes, 
we think, amounting even to the " sublime," — which is a quality 
our poet totally denies him. We would instance that answer of 
Cethegus to Catiline, when the latter says — 

" Who would not fall, with all the world about him ? 
Cethegus. — Not I, that would stand on it, when it falls." 

Also the passage where it is said of Catiline, advancing with his 
army, 

" The day grew black with him, 
And Fate descended nearer to the earth ; " 

and the other in which he is described as coming on 

" JSTot with the face 
Of any man, but of a public ruin ; " 

(though we think we have read that in some Latin author, and 
indeed it is at all times difficult to say where Jonson has not 
been borrowing). The vindictive quietness of Cicero's direction 
to the lictors to put Statilius and Gabinius to death, is very like 
a sublimation above the highest ordinary excitability of human 
resentment. Marlowe might have written it — 

" Take them 
To your cold hands, and let them feel death from you." 

And the rising of the ghost of Sylla, by way of prologue to this 
play, uttering, as he rises, 

" Dost thou not feel me, Rome ? " 

appears to us decidedly sublime, — making thus the evil spirit of 
one man equal to the great city, and to all the horrors that are 
about to darken it. Nor is the opening of the speech of Envy, 
as prologue to the Poetaster, far from something of a like eleva- 



198 SOCIAL MORALITY. 

tion. The accumulated passion, in her shape, thinks herself 
warranted to insult the light, and her insult is very grand : — 

" Light, I salute thee, but with wounded nerves, 
Wishing thy golden splendour pitchy darkness." 

Milton has been here, and in numerous other places, imitating 
his learned and lofty-tongued predecessor. 

On the other hand, besides acknowledging the greatness of 
his powers in general, and ranking him as second only in his age 
to Shakspeare (which might surely propitiate the fondest partisan), 
Mr. Cornwall has done ample and eloquent justice to Jonson's 
powers as a satirist, to his elegant learning, and his profuse and 
graceful fancy ; and if he objects to his tediousness, coarseness, 
and boasting, and to the praise emphatically bestowed on him for 
" judgment," we are compelled to say, in spite of our admiration 
and even love of the old poet (for it is difficult to help loving 
those to whom w r e are indebted for great pleasures) that we think 
he might have spoken more strongly on all those points, and not 
been either unjust or immodest. If Jonson, in spite of his airs 
of independence, had not been a Tory poet and a court flatterer, 
the Tory critics (we do not say the present one, but the race in 
general,) would have trampled upon him for his arrogance, quite 
as much as they have exalted him. Even Gifford would have 
insulted him, though he evidently liked him out of a vanity of 
self-love, as well as from the sympathies above mentioned* The 
right equilibrium in Jonson's mind was so far overborne by his 
leaning to power in preference to the beautiful (which is an 
inconsistency, and, so to speak, unnaturalness in the poetical 
condition), that while he was ever huffing and lecturing the very 
audiences that came to hear him, he could not help consulting 
the worst taste of their majorities, and writing whole plays, like 
Bartholomew Fair, full of the absolutest, and sometimes loath- 
somest, trash, to show that he was as strong as their united 
vulgar knowledges; and, he might have added, as dull in his 
condescension to boot. A,nd os to the long-disputed question, 
whether he was arrogant ,W not, and a "swaggerer" (which 
indeed, as Charles Lamb nas intimated, might be shown, after a 
certain sublimated fashion, in the very characters in which he 
chiefly excelled — Sir Epicure Mammon, Bobadil, &c, and, it 
may be added, Catiline and Sejanus too), how anybody, who ever 
read his plays, could have doubted, or affected to doubt it, is a 



SUCKLING AND BEN JONSON. 199 

puzzle that can only be accounted for, upon what accounts for 
any critical phenomenon, — party or personal feeling. 

" That Ben Jonson," says the critic in the Times, " had not 
the most equable temper in the world — that he had a high 
opinion of his own capacity, and saw no reason to conceal it, we 
at once admit : but such defects are often the concomitants of 
generous and noble minds ; and we should recollect that, if he 
was fierce when assailed, few men have had equal provocation 
during life, or baser injustice done to their memory. Jonson's 
enemies, to whom Mr. Barry Cornwall has a hankering wish to 
lean, seem to have been a mere set of obscure authors dependent 
on the theatre, to whose reputation Jonson's success was perhaps 
injurious, and whose minds, at least, seem to have been 
embittered by it. Horace, Ovid, Aristophanes, and twenty 
other poets, have praised themselves more highly than he did. 
Milton, who seems to have had Ben Jonson's works much in his 
hands, his style, both in verse and prose, being evidently modelled 
on that of his predecessor, imitated him in this likewise." 

Now, what " provocation " Jonson had during his life, which 
his own assumptions did not originate, is yet, we believe, to be 
ascertained. The obscure authors, of whom his enemies are here 
made to consist, were, by his own showing (as well by allusion 
as by acknowledged characterization), some, perhaps all, of the 
most admired of our old English dramatists then writing, with 
the exception of Beaumont and Fletcher. Self-praise was a 
fashion in ancient poetry, but has never been understood as more 
allowable to modern imitation than the practice of self-murder, 
which was also an ancient fashion ; and if Milton, amidst his 
glorious pedantries (of the better spirit of which, as well as a 
worse, Jonson must be allowed to have partaken) permitted 
himself to indulge in personal boasting, it was in a very different 
style indeed from that of his predecessor, as the reader may 
judge from the following specimens. Ben says of his muse, — 

" The garland that she wears their hands must twine, 
Who can both censnre, understand, define 
What merit is : then cast those piercing rays 
Round as a crown, instead of honour'd bays, 
About his poesy ; which, he knows, affords 
Words above action, matter above words." 

Prologue to Cynthia's Revels. 

And Cynthia's Bevels is, upon the whole, a very poor production, 
with scarcely a beautiful passage in it, except the famous lyric, 



200 SOCIAL MORALITY. 

Queen and Huntress. Yet in the epilogue to this play (as if 
conscious that his " will " must serve for the deed), the actor 
who delivers it is instructed to talk thus : — 

" To crave your favour with a begging knee 
Were to distrust the writer's faculty. 
To promise better when the next we bring 
Prorogues disgrace, commends not anything. 
Stiffly to stand on this, and proudly approve 
The play, might tax the maker of self-love. 
I'll only speak what I have heard him say, 
' By God ! His good, and if you UkeH you may. 9 " 

The critics, naturally enough, thought this not over modest ; 
so in the prologue to his next play, the Poetaster (which was 
written to ridicule pretension in his adversaries), he makes a 
prologue "in armour " tread Envy under foot, and requests the 
audience, that if he should once more swear his play is good, 
they would not charge him with " arrogance," for he " loathes " 
it; only he knows " the strength of his own muse," and they 
who object to such phrases in him are the " common spawn of 
ignorance," "base detractors," and "illiterate apes." In this 
play of the Poetaster the scene of which is laid in the court 
of Augustus, Jonson himself is " Horace," and such men as 
Decker and Marston the fops and dunces whom Horace satirizes ; 
and in the epilogue, after saying that he will leave " the mon- 
sters " to their fate, he informs his hearers, that he means to 
write a tragedy next time, in which he shall essay 

" To strike the ear of time in those fresh strains, 
As shall, beside the cunning of their ground, 
Give cause to some of wonder, some despite, 
And some despair, to imitate the sound." 

The tragedy, accordingly, of Sejanus made its appear- 
ance : in an address concerning which to the reader, while 
noticing some old classical rules which he has not attended to, 
he says, " In the meantime, if, in truth of argument, dignity of 
persons, gravity and height of eleration, fulness and frequency of 
sentence, I have discharged the other offices of a tragic writer, 
let not the absence of those forms be imputed to me, wherein I 
shall give you occasion hereafter, and without my boast, to think 
I could better prescribe than omit the due sense of, for want of a 
convenient knowledge." 

In the dedication of The Fox to the two Universities, the 
writer's language, speaking of some " worthier fruits," which he 



SUCKLING AND BEN JONSON. 201 

hopes to put forth, is this : — " Wherein, if my hearers be true to 
me, I shall raise the despised head of poetry again, and strip- 
ping her out of those rotten and base rags wherewith the times 
hare adulterated her form, restore her to her primitive habit, 
feature, and majesty, and render her worthy to be embraced and 
kissed of all the great and master spirits of our world" And 
beautifully is this said. But Shakspeare had then nearly written 
all his p>L a y s i AND WAS still writing! The three preceding 
years are supposed to have produced Macbeth, Lear, and Othello ! 
Marston, Decker, Chapman, Drayton, Middleton, Webster ; in 
short, almost all those whom posterity admires or reverences 
under the title of the Old English Dramatists, were writing also ; 
and it was but nine years before, that Spenser had published the 
second part of the Fairy Queen, in which the " despised head of 
poetry " had been set up with the lustre of an everlasting sun, 
and such as surely had not let darkness in upon the land again, 
followed as it was by all those dramatic lights, and the double or 
triple sun of Shakspeare himself! The "master spirits" whom 
Ben speaks of, must at once have laughed at the vanity, and 
been sorry for the genius of the man who could so talk in such 
an age. Above all, what could Shakspeare have thought of his 
wayward, his learned, but in these respects certainly not very 
wise, nor very friendly, friend ? We could quote similar evi- 
dences of the most preposterous self-love from the prologues or 
epilogues, or the body, of the greater part of his plays : but we 
tire of the task, especially when we think, not only of the genius 
which did itself as well as others such injustice, but of the good- 
nature that lay at the bottom of his very arrogance and envy ; 
for, that he strongly felt the passion of envy, of which he is always 
accusing others, we have as little doubt, as that he struggled against 
and surmounted it at frequent and glorious intervals ; and, besides 
his saying more things in praise (as well as blame of his contempo- 
raries than any man living, partly perhaps in his assumed right of 
censor, but much also out of a joviality of good- will) his lines to the 
memory of Shakspeare do as much honour to the final goodness of 
his heart, as to the grace and dignity of his style and imagination. 
But even his friends as well as enemies thought him immo- 
dest and arrogant, and publicly lamented it. See what Randolph 
and Carew, as well as Owen Feltham, say of him in their 
responses to his famous ode, beginning, 

" Come, leave the loathed stage, 
And the more loathsome age ! " 



202 SOCIAL MORALITY. 

an invective which he wrote because one of his plays had been 
damned. 

In short, Ben is an anomaly in the list of great poets ; and 
we can only account for him, as for a greater (Dante, — who has 
contrived to make his muse more grandly disagreeable), by sup- 
posing that his nature included the contradictions of some ill- 
matched progenitors, and that, while he had a grace for one 
parent or ancestor, he had a slut and fury for another. 

Nor should we have taken these liberties with so great a 
name, but in our zeal for the greater names of truth and justice. 
Amicus, Ben Jonson ; amicus every clever critic, whether in 
Whig paper or Tory ; but magis arnica. Proof. 

If asked to give our opinion of Ben Jonson 's powers in gene- 
ral, we should say that he was a poet of a high order, as far as 
learning, fancy, and an absolute rage of ambition, could conspire 
to make him one ; but that he never touched at the highest, 
except by violent efforts, and during the greatest felicity of his 
sense of success. Tbe material so predominated in him over the 
spiritual, — the sensual over the sentimental, — that he w T as more 
social than loving, and far more wilful and fanciful than imagina- 
tive. Desiring the strongest immediate effect, rather than the 
best effect, he subserved by wholesale in his comedies to the 
grossness and common-place of the very multitude whom he 
hectored ; and in love with whatsoever he knew or uttered, he 
set learning above feeling in writing his tragedies, and never 
knew when to leave off, whether in tragedy or comedy. His 
style is more clear and correct than impassioned, and only rises 
above a certain level at remarkable intervals, when he is heated 
by a sense of luxury or domination. He betrays what was weak 
in himself, and even a secret misgiving, by incessant attacks 
upon the weakness and envy of others ; and, in his highest 
moods, instead of the healthy, serene, and good-natured might of 
Shakspeare, has something of a puffed and uneasy pomp, a 
bigness instead of greatness, analogous to his gross habit of 
body : nor, when you think of him at any time, can you well 
separate the idea from that of the assuming scholar and the 
flustered nian of taverns. But the w T onder after all is, that, 
having such a superfcetation of art in him, he had still so much 
nature ; and that the divine bully of the old English Par- 
nassus could be, whenever he chose it, one of the most elegant 
of men. 



( 203 ) 



POPE, IN SOME LIGHTS IN WHICH HE IS 
NOT USUALLY KEGARDED, 

UNFADED INTEREST OF THE SUBJECT OF POPE AND OTHERS SHAK- 

SPEARE NOT EQUALLY AT HOME WITH MODERN LIFE, THOUGH 
MORE SO WITH GENERAL HUMANITY — LETTERS OF POPE — A WOOD- 
ENGRAVING A CENTURY AGO — POPE WITH A YOUNG LADY IN A 

STAGE-COACH DINING WITH MAIDS OF HONOUR — RIDING TO OXFORD 

BY MOONLIGHT LOYABILITY NOT DEPENDENT ON SHAPE — INSIN- 
CERITY NOT ALWAYS WHAT IT IS TAKEN FOR — WHIGS, TORIES, AND 

CATHOLICS MASTERLY EXPOSITION OF THE REASON WHY PEOPLE 

LIVE UNCOMFORTABLY TOGETHER — " RONDEAULX," AND A RONDEAU. 

Those who have been conversant in early life with Pope and the 
other wits of Queen Anne, together with the Bellendens, Herveys, 
Lady Suffolks, and other feminities, are never tired of hearing of 
them afterwards, let their subsequent studies be as lofty as they 
may in the comparison. We can no more acquire a dislike to 
them, than we can give up a regard for the goods and chattels to 
which we have been accustomed in our houses, or for the costume 
with which we associate the ideas of our uncles, and aunts, and 
grandfathers. They are authors who come within our own era of 
manners and customs, — within the period of coats and waistcoats, 
and snuff-taking, and the same kinds of eating and drinking ; 
they have lived under the same dynasty of the Georges, speak the 
same unobsolete language, and inhabit the same houses ; in short, 
are at home with us. Shakspeare, with all his marvellous power 
of coming among us, and making us laugh and weep so as none 
of them can, still comes (so to speak) in a doublet and beard ; he 
is an ancestor, — "Master Shakspeare," — one who says "yea" 
and "nay," and never heard of Pall Mall or the opera. The 
others are "yes" and "no" men — swearers of last Tuesday's 
oaths, or payers of its compliments — cousins, and aunts, and 
every-day acquaintances. Pope is " Mr. Pope," and comes iu 
" tea " with us. Nobody, alas ! ever drank tea with Shakspeare ! 
The sympathies of a slip-slop breakfast are not his ; nor of 
coffee, nor Brussels carpets, nor girandoles and ormolu ; neither " 



204 POPE, IN SOME LIGHTS IN WHICH 

did he ever take snuff, or a sedan, ora a coach " to the theatre ; 
nor behold, poor man ! the coming glories of silver forks. His 
very localities are no longer ours except in name ; whereas the 
Cork Streets, and St. James's Streets, and Kensingtons, are still 
almost the identical places — in many respects really such — in 
which the Arbuthnots lived, and the Steeles lounged, and the 
Maids of Honour romped in the gardens at night-time, to the 
scandal of such of the sisterhood as had become married.* 

Another reason why one likes the wits and poets of that age 
is, that, besides being contemporary with one's common-places, 
they have associated them with their wit and elegance. We know 
not how the case may be with others, but this is partly the reason 
why we like the houses built a century ago, with their old red 
brick, and their seats in the windows. A portrait of the same 
period is the next thing to having the people with us ; and we 
rarely see a tea-table at which a graceful woman presides, with- 
out its reminding us of The Rajie of the Lock. It hangs her 
person with sylphs as well as jewellery, and inclines us to use a 
pair of scissors with the same blissful impudence as my Lord 
Petre.f 

There is a third reason, perhaps, lying sometimes underneath 
our self-love ; but it takes a sort of impudence in the very 
modesty to own it ; for who can well dare to say that he ever 
feels oppressed by the genius of Shakspeare and his contempo- 
raries ! As if there could be any possibility of rivalry ! Who 
ventures to measure his utmost vanity with the skies ? or to say 
to all nature, " You really excel the existing generation ? " And 
3'et something of oppressiveness in the shape of wonder and 
admiration may be allowed to turn us away at times from the 
contemplation of Shakspeare or the stars, and make us willing to 

* Vide the Suffolk Correspondence, vol. i. p. 333. 

f The reader need scarcely be reminded that the " peer " who " spread 
the glittering forfex wide," was a Lord Petre, of the noble Catholic family 
still existing. As the poem was written in 1711, he must have been 
" Robert, seventh Baron Petre," who succeeded to the title in 1707, and 
died in 1713. He married the year after the writing of the poem, and died 
the year following ; so that his life seems to have been u short and sweet." 
It is pleasant to see, by the peerages, that the family intermarried in the 
present century with that of the Blounts of Mapledurham — the friends of 
Pope ; and that one of the sisters of the bride was named Arabella, pro- 
bably after Arabella Fermor, the Belinda of the poet. A sense of the 
honours conferred by genius gives the finishing grace to noble families that 
have the luck to possess them. 



HE IS NOT USUALLY REGABDED. 205 

repose in the easy-chairs of Pope and one's grandmother. We 
confess, for our own parts, that as 

" Love may venture in 
Where it dare not well be seen ; " 

or rather, as true, hearty, loving, vanity-forgetting love warrants 
us in keeping company with the greatest of the loving, so we do 
find ourselves in general quite at our ease in the society of Shak- 
speare himself, emotion apart. We are rendered so by the 
humanity that reconciles us to our defects, and by the wisdom 
which preferred love before all things. Setting hats and caps 
aside, and coming to pure flesh and blood, and whatsoever sur- 
vives fashion and conventionalism, who can jest so heartily as 
he ? who so make you take " your ease at your inn ? " who talk 
and walk with you, feel, fancy, imagine ; be in the woods, the 
clouds, fairy-land, among friends (there is no man so fond of 
drawing friends as he is), or if you want a charming woman to 
be in love with and live with for ever, who can so paint her in 
a line ? 

" Pretty, and witty ; wild, and yet, too, gentle." 

All that the Popes and Priors could have conspired with all the 
Suffolks and Montagues to say of delightful womanhood, could 
not have outvalued the comprehensiveness of that line. Still, as 
one is accustomed to think even of the most exquisite women in 
connexion with some costume or other, be it no more than a 
slipper to her foot, modern dress insists upon clothing them to 
one's imagination, in preference to dress ancient. We cannot 
love them so entirely in the dresses of Arcadia, or in the ruffs 
and top-knots of the time of Elizabeth, as in the tuckers and 
tresses to which we have been accustomed. As they approach 
our own times, they partake of the warmness of our homes. 
" Anne Page" might have been handsomer, but we cannot take 
to her so heartily as to "Nancy Dawson," or to " Mary Lepell." 
" Imogen" there seems no matching or dispensing with; and yet 
Lady Winchelsea when Miss Kingsmill, or Mrs. Brooke, when 
she was Fanny Moore the clergyman's daughter, dancing under 
the cherry-trees of the parsonage-garden, and "as remarkable 
for her gentleness and suavity of manners as for her literary 
talents," — we cannot but feel that the " Miss " and the " Fanny " 
carries us away with it, in spite of all the realities mixed up with 
those desuetudes of older times. 



206 POPE, IN SOME LIGHTS IN WHICH 

We have been led into these reflections by a volume of Popes 
Letters, which we read over again the other day, and which found 
our regard for him as fresh as ever, notwithstanding all that we 
have learnt to love and admire more. We cannot live with Pope 
and the wits as entirely as we used to do at one period. Circum- 
stances have re-opened new worlds to us, both real and ideal, 
which have as much enlarged (thank Heaven !) our possessions, 
as though to a house of the sort above mentioned had been added 
the gardens of all the east, and the forests (with all their visions) 
of Greece and the feudal times. Still the house is there, fur- 
nished as aforesaid, and never to be given up. And as men after 
all their day-dreams, whether of poetry or of business (for it is 
little suspected how much fancy mingles even with that), are glad 
to be called to dinner or tea, and see the dear familiar faces about 
them, so, though the author we admire most be Shakspeare, and 
the two books we can least dispense with on our shelves are 
Spenser and the Arabian Nights, we never quit these to look at 
our Pope, and our Parnell and Thomson, without a sort of house- 
hold pleasure in our eyes, and a grasp of the volume as though 
some Mary Lepell, or Margaret Bellenden, or some Mary or 
Marianne of our own, had come into the room herself, and held 
out to us her cordial hand. 

Here, then, is a volume of Pope's Letters, complete in itself 
(not one of the voluminous edition), a duodecimo, lettered as just 
mentioned, bound in calf (plain at the sides, but gilt and flowered 
at the back), and possessing a portrait with cap, open shirt- collar, 
and great black eyes. We are bibliomanics enough to like to give 
these details, and hope that the reader does not despise them. 
At the top of the first letter, there is one of those engraved head- 
pieces, of ludicrously ill-design and execution, which used to 
"adorn" books a century ago; — things like uncouth dreams, 
magnified out of all proportion, and innocent of possibility. The 
subject of the present is Hero and Leander. Hero, with four 
dots for eyes, nose, and mouth, is as tall as the tower itself out of 
which she is leaning ; and Leander has had a sort of platform 
made for him at the side of the tower, flat on the water, and 
obviously on purpose to accommodate his dead body ; just as 
though a coroner's inquest had foreseen the necessity there would 
be for it. But we must not be tempted at present into dwelling 
upon illustrations of this kind. We design some day, if a wood 
engraver will stand by us, to give something of an historical 
sketch of their progress through old romances, classics, and 



HE IS NOT USUALLY REGARDED . 207 

Spelling-books, with commentaries as we proceed, and a " fetching 
out " of their beauties ; not without an eye to those initial letters 
and tail-pieces, in which A's and B's, nymphs, satyrs, and dragons, 
&c, flourish into every species of monstrous, grotesque, and half- 
human exuberance. 

What we would more particularly take occasion to say from 
the volume before us, agreeably to our design of noticing whatever 
has been least or not at all noticed by the biographers, is, that 
notwithstanding our long intimacy with the writings of Pope, we 
found in it some things which we do not remember to have 
observed before, — little points of personal interest, which become 
great enough in connection with such a man to be of consequence 
to those who would fain know him as if they had lived with him, 
and which the biographers (who, in fact, seldom do more than 
repeat one another) have not thought it worth their while to 
attend to. 

The first is, that whereas the personal idea of Pope, which we 
generally present to our minds in consequence of the best-known 
prints of him, is that of an elderly man, we here chiefly see him 
as a young one, from the age of sixteen to thirty, and mostly 
while he lived at Binfleld in Windsor Forest, when his principal 
fame arose from his happiest production, The Rape of the Lock. 
We see him also caressed, as he deserved to be, by the ladies ; 
and intimating with a becoming ostentation (considering the 
consciousness of his personal defects which he so touchingly 
avows at other times), what a very " lively young fellow " he was 
(to speak in the language of the day), and how pleased they were 
to pay him attention. The late republication of the writings of 
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu has revived the discussion respect- 
ing her supposed, and but too probable, brusquerie towards him 
(for no man deserved greater delicacy in repulse from a woman, 
than one so sensitive and so unhappily formed as he). We shall 
here give, as a counter lump of sugar to those old bitters, a 
passage from a letter written when he was twenty- one, in which 
he describes the effect which the gaiety of his conversation had 
on a young lady whom he met in a stage-coach. What he says 
about a " sick woman " being the " worst of evils," is not quite 
so well. It is not in the taste of Spenser and the other great 
poets his superiors ; yet we must not take it in its worst sense 
either, but only as one of those " airs " which it was thought 
becoming in such " young fellows " to give themselves in those 
days, when people had not properly recovered from the unsenti- 



208 POPE, IN SOME LIGHTS IN WHICH 

mentalizing effects of the gallantry of the court of Charles II. 
For the better exhibitions of these our passages of interest, 
rescued from the comparative obscurity occasioned by the neglect 
of biographers, we shall give them heads : — 

Pope admired by a Young Lady in a Stage Coach. 

" The morning after I parted from you, I found myself (as I had pro* 
phecy'd) all alone, in an uneasy stage coach ; a doleful change from that 
agreeable company I enjoyed the night before ! without the least hope of 
entertainment, but from my last resource in such cases — a book. I then 
began to enter into an acquaintance with the moralists, and had just 
received from them some cold consolation for the inconvenience of this 
life and the uncertainty of human affairs, when I perceived my vehicle to 
stop, and heard from the side of it the dreadful news of a sick woman 
preparing to enter it. 'Tis not easy to guess at my mortification ; but 
being so well fortified with philosophy I stood resigned, with a stoical 
constancy, to endure the worst of evils — a sick woman. I was, indeed, a 
little comforted to find by her voice and dress that she was a gentlewoman ; 
but no sooner was her hood removed, but I saw one of the most beautiful 
faces I ever beheld ; and to increase my surprise, I heard her salute me by 
my name. I never had more reason to accuse nature for making me short- 
sighted than now, when I could not recollect I had ever seen those fair eyes 
which knew me so well, and was utterly at a loss how to address myself ; 
till, with a great deal of simplicity and innocence, she let me know (even 
before I discovered my ignorance) that she was the daughter of one in our 
neighbourhood, lately married, who having been consulting her physicians 
in town, was returning into the country, to try what good air and a new 
husband could do to recover her. My father, you must know, htfs some- 
times recommended the study of physic to me ; but I never had any 
ambition to be a doctor till this instant. I ventured to prescribe some 
fruit (which I happened to have in the coach), which being forbidden her 
by her doctors, she had the more inclination to ; in short, I tempted her, 
and she ate ; nor was I more like the devil than she like ' Eve.' Having 
the good success of the aforesaid gentleman before my eyes, I put on the 
gallantry of the old serpent, and in spite of my evil form, accosted her 
with all the gaiety I was master of, which had so good effect, that in less 
than an hour she grew pleasant, her colour returned, and she was } (leased 
to say my prescription had wrought an immediate cure ; in a word, I had 
the pleasantest journey imaginable." 

We learn from this passage, by the way, that Pope's father 
sometimes expressed his wish to see his son a physician. The 
son, however, wisely avoided a profession which would have 
severely tried his health, and not very well have suited his 
personal appearance. Otherwise, there can be no doubt he would 
have made an excellent member of the faculty, — learned, bland, 
sympathetic, and entertaining. 

The passage we shall extract next is better known, but we 
give it because Maids of Honour are again flourishing. The poet 



HE IS NOT USUALLY REGARDED, 209 

is here again at his ease with the fair sex. The " prince, with all 
his ladies on horseback," is George II., then Prince of Wales, 
who is thus seen compelling his wife's maids of honour to ride out 
with him whether their mistress went or not, and to go hunting 
" over hedges and ditches on borrowed hacks ! " The case is 
otherwise now ; and the lovely Margaret Dillons, and Spring 
Rices, and Listers, have the luck to follow a gentlewoman instead 
of a brute. They can also go in carriages instead of on horse- 
back, when they prefer it. Whether they have not still, 
however, occasionally to undergo that dreadful catastrophe, — 
" a red mark in the forehead from an uneasy hat," may be 
made a question. 

Pope Dining and Walking by Moonlight w t ith Maids of Honour. 

" I went by water to Hampton Court, unattended by all but my own 
virtues, which were not of so modest a nature as to keep themselves or me 
concealed ; for I met the prince with all his ladies on horseback coming 

from hunting. Mrs. B (Bellenden)* and Mrs. L (Lepell) took 

me into protection (contrary to the laws against harbouring papists), and 
gave me a dinner, with something I liked better — an opportunity of con- 
versation with Mrs. H (Howard, afterwards Lady Suffolk). We all 

agreed that the life of a maid of honour was of all things the most miser- 
able ; and wished that every woman who envied had a specimen of it. To 
eat Westphalia ham in a morning, ride over hedges and ditches on borrowed 
hacks, come home in the heat of the day with a fever, and (what is worse 
a hundred times) with a red mark in the forehead from an uneasy hat ; all 
this may qualify them to make excellent wives for fox-hunters, and bear 
abundance of ruddy-complexion ed children. As soon as they can wdpe off 
the sweat of the day, they must simper an hour, and catch cold in the 
princess's apartment ; from thence (as Shakspeare has it) ' to dinner with 
what appetite they may ; ' and after that, till midnight, walk, work, or 
think, which they please. I can easily believe no lone house in Wales, 
with a mountain and rookery, is more contemplative than this court ; and 

as a proof of it, I need only tell you, Mrs. L walked all alone with me 

three or four hours by moonlight ; and we met no creature of any quality 
but the king, who gave audience to the vice-chamberlain, all alone, under 
the garden-wall." 

We hope Lady Mary Wortley saw this letter ; for she was 
jealous of the witty and beautiful Lepell, who married a flame 
of hers, Lord Hervey ; and though she is understood to have 
scorned the pretensions of Pope herself, it is in the nature of 
dispositions like hers not to witness pretensions paid even to the 
rejected without a pang. 

* The old title of Mistress, applied to unmarried ladies, was then still 
struggling with that of Miss each was occasionallv given. 

14 



210 POPE, IN SOME LIGHTS IN WHICH 

Our closing extract will mount the little immortal in his turn 
upon an eminence, on which he is certainly very seldom con- 
templated in the thoughts of anybody ; and yet it was a masculine 
one to which he appears to have been accustomed ; to wit, horse- 
back. He rides in the present instance from Binfield to Oxford, 
a distance of thirty miles, no mean one for his delicate frame. 
In a subsequent letter we find him taking the like journey and to 
the same place, in company with Lintott the bookseller, of whose 
overweening manners, and " eye," meanwhile, " to business," he 
gives a very amusing account, not omitting an intimation that he 
was the better rider, and did not at all suffer under the book- 
seller's cockney inexperience. But we prefer to see him journeying 
by himself. There is a sweet and poetical thoughtfulness in the 
passage, betwixt ease and solemnity : — 

Pope Journeying on Horseback by Moonlight. 

" Nothing could have more of that melancholy which once used to 
please me than my last day's journey ; for after having passed through my 
favourite woods in the forest, with a thousand reveries of past pleasure, I 
rode over hanging hills, whose tops were edged with groves, and whose 
feet watered with winding rivers, listening to the falls of cataracts below, 
and the murmuring of the winds above ; the gloomy verdure of Stonor 
succeeded to these, and then the shades of the evening overtook me. The 
moon rose in the clearest sky I ever saw, by whose solemn light I paced on 
slowly without company, or any interruption to the range of my thoughts. 
About a mile before I reached Oxford, all the bells tolled in different 
notes, and the clocks of every college answered one another, and sounded 
forth, some in a deeper, some in a softer tone, that it was eleven at night. 
All this was no ill preparation to the life I have led since, among those old 
walls, venerable galleries, stone porticos, studious walks, and solitary scenes 
of the university. I wanted nothing but a black gown and a salary, to be as 
mere a bookworm as any there. I conformed myself to the college-hours — 
was rolled up in books — lay in one of the most ancient dusky parts of the 
university — and was as dead to the world as any hermit of the desert. If 
anything was alive or awake in me, it was a little vanity, such as even 
those good men used to entertain when the monks of their own order 
extolled their piety and abstraction ; for I found myself received with a 
sort of respect which this idle part of mankind, the learned, pay to their 
species, who are as considerable here as the busy, the gay, and the ambitious 
are in your world." 

In the letter containing this extract, is one of those touching 
passages we have mentioned, in which he alludes to his personal 
deformity : — 

" Here, at my Lord H 's (Harcourt's ?), I sec a creature nearer an 

angel than a woman (though a woman be very near as good as an angel). 
I think you have formerly heard me mention Mrs. T as a credit to the 



HE IS NOT USUALLY REGARDED. 211 

maker of angels ; she is a relation of his lordship's, and he gravely pro- 
posed her to me for a wife. Being tender of her interests, and knowing 
that she is less indebted to fortune than I, I told him, 'twas what he could 
never have thought of, if it had not been his misfortune to be blind, and 
what I could never think of, while I had eyes to see both her and myself/*' 

This is one of those rare occasions in which the most artificial 
turn of language, if gracefully put, is not unsuitable to the greatest 
depth of feeling, the speaker being taxed, as it were, to use his 
utmost address, both for his own sake and the lady's. We speak 
of " deformity" in reference to Pope's figure, since, undoubtedly, 
the term is properly applied ; and one of the greatest compliments 
that can be paid his memory (which may be sincerely done), is to 
think that a woman could really have loved him. But he had wit, 
fancy, sensibility, fame, and the " finest eyes in the world ; " and 
he would have worshipped her with so much gratitude, and filled 
her moments with so much intellectual entertainment, that w T e can 
believe a woman to have been very capable of a serious passion 
for him, especially if she was a very good and clever woman. As 
to minor faults of shape, even of his own sort, we take them to be 
nothing whatsoever in the way of such love. We have seen them 
embodying the finest minds and most generous hearts ; and 
believe, indeed, that a woman is in luck who has the wit to 
discern their lovability ; for it begets her a like affection, and 
shows that her own nature is w r orthy of it. 

This volume of Letters is the one that was occasioned by the 
surreptitious collection published by Curll. It contains the cor- 
respondence with Walsh, Wycherley, Trumbal, and Cromwell, 
those to " Several Ladies," to Edward Blount, and Gay, &c. 
The style is generally artificial, sometimes provokingly so, as in 
the answer to Sir William Trumbal' s hearty and natural con- 
gratulations on the Rape of the Lock. It vexes one to see so fine 
a poet make such an owl of himself with his laboured deprecations 
of flattery (of which there was none), and self-exaltations above 
the love of fame. The honest old statesman (a delightful cha- 
racter by the way, and not so rare as inexperience fancies it) 
must have smiled at the unconscious insincerity of his little great 
friend. "Unconscious " we say, for it is a mistake to conclude 
that an insincerity of this kind may not have a great deal of truth 
in it, as regards the writer's own mind and intentions ; and Pope, 
at the time, had not lived long enough to become aware of his 
weakness in this respect ; perhaps never did. On the other hand, 
there are abundant proofs in these Letters of the best kind of 



212 POPE, IN SOME LIGHTS IN WHICH 

sincerity, and of the most exquisite good sense. Pope's heart 
and purse (which he could moderately afford) were ever open to 
his friends, let his assertions to that effect be taken by a shallow 
and envious cunning in as much evidence to the contrary as it 
pleases. He was manifestly kind to everybody in every respect, 
except when they provoked his wit and self-love a little too far ; 
and then only, or chiefly, as it affected him publicly. He had 
little tricks of management, we dare say ; that must be an indul- 
gence conceded to his little crazy body, and his fear of being 
jostled aside by robuster exaction ; and we will not swear that he 
was never disingenuous before those whom he had attacked. 
That may have been partly owing to his very kindness, uneasy at 
seeing the great pain which he had given ; for his satire was bred 
in him by reading satire (Horace, Boileau, and others) ; and it 
was doubtless more bent on being admired for its wit than feared 
for its severity, exquisitely severe though he could be, and pleased 
as a man of so feeble a body must have been at seeing his pen so 
formidable. He fondly loved his friends. We see by this book, 
that before he was six- and- twenty, he had painted Swift's portrait 
(for he dabbled in oil-painting) three times ; and he was always 
wishing Gay to come and live with him, doubtless at his expense. 
He said on one of these occasions, " Talk not of expenses ; 
Homer (that is, his translation) will support his children." iVnd 
when Gay was in a bad state of health, and might be thought in 
want of a better air, Pope told him he would go with him to the 
south of France ; a journey which, for so infirm and habitual a 
homester, would have been little less, than if an invalid nowa- 
days should propose to go and live with his friend in South 
America. 

There are some passages in this volume so curiously applic- 
able to the state of things now existing among us,* that we are 
tempted to quote one or two of them : — 

" I am sure (says he) if all Whigs and all Tories had the spirit of one 
Roman Catholic I know (his friend Edward Blount, to whom he is writing), 
it would be well for all Roman Catholics ; and if all Roman Catholics had 
always had that spirit, it had been well for all others, and we had never 
been charged with so wicked a spirit as that of persecution." 

Again, in a letter to Craggs, — 

" I took occasion to mention the superstition of some ages after the 
subversion of the Roman empire, which is too manifest a truth to be denied, 

* 1838, 



HE IS NOT USUALLY REGAKDED. 213 

and does in no sort reflect upon the present professors of our faith (he was 
himself a Catholic) who are free from it. Our silence in these points may, 
with some reason, make our adversaries think we allow and persist in those 
bigotries, which yet, in reality, all good and sensible men despise, thongh 
they are persuaded not to speak against them ; I cannot tell why, since now 
it is no way the interest even of the worst of our priesthood, as it might 
have been then, to have them smothered in silence." 

Let the above be the answer to those who pretend to think 
that the Catholics are still as ignorant and bigoted as they were 
in the days of Queen Mary ! — as though such enlightened 
Catholics as Pope, and such revolting ones as Mary herself, had 
never assisted to bring them to a better way of thinking. 

For the exquisite good sense we have spoken of, take the 
following passage, which is a masterpiece : — 

" Nothing hinders the constant agreement of people who live together 
but mere vanity : a secret insisting upon what they think their dignity or 
merit, and inward expectation of such an over-measure of deference and 
regard as answers to their own extravagant false scale, and which nobody 
can pay, because none but themselves can tell readily to what pitch it 
amounts." 

Thousands of houses would be bappy to-morrow if this passage 
were written in letters of gold over the mantel-piece, and the 
offenders could have the courage to apply it to themselves. 

We shall conclude this article with an observation or two, 
occasioned by a rondeau in the volume, not otherwise very men- 
tionable. The first is, that in its time, and till lately, it was 
almost the only rondeau, we believe, existing in the language, 
certainly the only one that had attracted notice ; secondly, that it 
does not obey the laws of construction laid down by the example 
of Marot, and pleasantly set forth of late in a publication on 
" Rondeaulx " (pray pronounce the word in good honest old 
French, with the eaulx, like the beating up of eggs for a pudding); 
third, that owing to the lesser animal spirits prevailing in this 
country, the larger form of the rondeau is not soon likely to 
obtain ; fourth, that in a smaller and more off-hand shape it 
seems to us deserving of revival, and extremely well calculated 
to give effect to such an impulse as naturally inclines us to 
the repetition of two or three words ; and fifth and last, that as 
love sometimes makes people imprudent, and gets them excused 
for it, so this loving perusal of Pope and his volume has tempted 
us to publish a rondeau of our own, which was written on a real 
occasion, and therefore may be presumed to have had the afore- 
said impulse. We must add, lest our egotism should be thought 



214 



POPE* 



still greater on the occasion than it is, that the lady was a great 
lover of books and impulsive writers : and that it was our sincerity 
as one of them which obtained for us this delightful compliment 
from a young enthusiast to an old one. 

" Jenny kiss'd me when we met, 

Jumping from the chair she sat in ; 
Time, you thief ! who love to get 

Sweets into your list, put that in. 
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad, 

Say that health and wealth have miss'd me, 
Say I'm growing old, hut add, 

Jenny kiss'd me." 



( 215 ) 



GAETH, PHYSICIANS, AND LOVE-LETTEKS. 

GARTH, AND A DEDICATION TO HIM BY STEELE — GARTH, POPE, AND 

ARBUTHNOT OTHER PHYSICIANS IN CONNEXION WITH WIT AND 

LITERATURE — DESIRABLENESS OF A SELECTION FROM THE LESS- 
KNOWN WORKS OF STEELE, AND OF A COLLECTION OF REAL LOVE- 
LETTERS — TWO BEAUTIFUL SPECIMENS FROM THE " LOVER." 

We never cast our eyes towards "Harrow on the Hill " (let us 
keep these picturesque denominations of places as long as we 
can) without thinking of an amiable man and most pleasant wit 
and physician of Queen Anne's time, who lies buried there, — 
Garth, the author of the Dispensary. He was the Whig physician 
of the men of letters of that day, as Arbuthnot was the Tory : and 
never were two better men sent to console the ailments of two 
witty parties, or show them what a nothing party is, compared 
with the humanity remaining under the quarrels of both. 

We are not going to repeat what has been said of Garth so 
often before us. Our chief object, as far as regards himself, is 
to lay before the reader some passages of a Dedication which 
appears to have escaped notice, and which beautifully enlarges 
upon that professional generosity which obtained him the love of 
all parties, and the immortal panegyrics of Dryden and Pope. It 
is by Sir Richard Steele, and is written as none but a congenial 
spirit could write, in love with the same virtues, and accustomed 
to the consolation derived from them: — 

To Sir Samuel Garth, M.D. 
« Sir, 

" As soon as I thought of making the Lover a present to one of my 
friends, I resolved, without further distracting my choice, to send it to the 
Best-Natured Man. You are so universally known for this character, that 
an epistle so directed would find its way to you without your name ; and I 
believe nobody but you yourself would deliver such a superscription to any 
other person. 

" This propensity is the nearest akin to love ; and good nature is the 
worthiest affection of the mind, as love is the noblest passion of it. While 
the latter is wholly occupied in endeavouring to make happy one single 
object, the other diffuses its benevolence to all the world. * * * 

" The pitiful artifices which empyrics are guilty of to drain cash out of 



216 GARTH, PHYSICIANS, AND LOVE-LETTERS. 

valetudinarians, are the abhorrence of your generous mind ; and it is as 
common with Garth to supply indigent patients with money for food, as to 
receive it from wealthy ones for physic. * * * * 

" This tenderness interrupts the satisfactions of conversation, to which 
you are so happily turned ; but we forgive you that our mirth is often 
insipid to you, while you sit absent to ivhat passes amongst us, from your care 
of such as languish in sickness. We are sensible that their distresses, 
instead of being removed by company, return more strongly to your imagi- 
nation, by comparison of their condition to the jollities of health. 

" But I forget I am writing a dedication," &c. &c. &c. 

This picture of a man sitting silent, on account of his sym- 
pathies with the absent, in the midst of such conversation as he 
was famous for excelling in, is very interesting, and comes home 
to us as if we were in his company. Who will wonder that Pope 
should write of Garth as he did ? 

" Farewell, Arbuthnot's raillery 
On every learned sot ; 
And Garth, the best good Christian he, 
Although he knows it not" 

This exquisite compliment to Garth has been often noticed, 
as at once confirming the^ scepticism attributed to him, and 
vindicating the Christian spirit with which it was accompanied. 
But it has not been remarked, that Pope, with a further delicacy, 
highly creditable to all parties, has here celebrated, in one and 
the same stanza, his Tory and his Whig medical friend. The 
delicacy is carried to its utmost towards Arbuthnot also, when 
we consider that that learned wit had the reputation of being as 
orthodox a Christian in belief as in practice. The modesty of 
his charity is thus taxed to its height, and therefore as highly 
complimented, by the excessive praise bestowed on the Christian 
spirit of the rival wit, Whig, and physician. 

The intercourse in all ages, between men of letters and 
lettered physicians is one of the most pleasing subjects of con- 
templation in the history of authorship. The necessity (some- 
times of every description) on one side, the balm afforded on the 
other, the perfect mutual understanding, the wit, the elegance, 
the genius, the masculine gentleness, the honour mutually done 
and received, and not seldom the consciousness that friendships 
so begun will be recognized and loved by posterity, — all combine 
to give it a very peculiar character of tender and elevated 
humanity, and to make us, the spectators, look on, with an 
interest partaking of the gratitude. If it had not been for 



GARTH, PHYSICIANS, AND LOVE-LETTEBS. 217 

Arbuthnot, posterity might have been deprived of a great deal of 

Pope. 

" Friend to my life, which did not you prolong, 
The world had wanted many an idle song," 

says he, in his Epistle to the Doctor. And Dryden, in the 
Postscript to his translation of Virgil, speaks, in a similar way, 
of his medical friends, and of the whole profession : — 

" That I have recovered, in some measure, the health which I had lost 
by too much application to this work, is owing, next to God's mercy, to 
the skill and care of Dr. Guibbons and Dr. Hobbs, the two ornaments of 
their profession, whom I can only pay by this acknowledgment. The 
whole faculty has always been ready to oblige me." 

Pope again, in a letter to his friend Allen, a few weeks before 
he died, pays the like general compliment : — 

" There is no end of my kind treatment from the faculty. They are, 
in general, the most amiable companions, and the best friends, as well as 
most learned men I know." 

We are sorry we cannot quote a similar testimony from 
Johnson, in one of his very best passages ; but we have not his 
Lives of the Poets at hand, and cannot find it in any similar book. 
It was to Johnson that Dr. Brocklesby offered not only apart- 
ments in his house, but an annuity ; and the same amiable man 
is known to have given a considerable sum of money to his friend 
Burke. The extension of obligations of this latter kind is, for 
many obvious reasons, not to be desired. The necessity on the 
one side must be of as peculiar and, so to speak, of as noble a 
kind as the generosity on the other ; and special care would be 
taken by a necessity of that kind, that the generosity should be 
equalled by the means. But where the circumstances have 
occurred, it is delightful to record them. And we have no doubt, 
that in proportion to the eminence of physicians' names in the 
connection of their art with other liberal studies, the records 
would be found numerous with all, if we had the luck to dis- 
cover them. There is not a medical name connected with 
literature, which is not that of a generous man in regard to 
money matters, and, commonly speaking, in all others. Black- 
more himself, however dull as a poet and pedantic as a moralist, 
enjoyed, we believe, the usual reputation of the faculty for 
benevolence. We know not whether Cowley is to be mentioned 
among the physicians who have taken their degrees in wit or 



218 GARTH, PHYSICIANS, AND LOVE-LETTERS, 

poetry, for perhaps he never practised. But the annals of our 
minor poetry abound in medical names, all of them eminent for 
kindness. Arbuthnot, as well as Garth, wrote verses, and no 
feeble ones either, as may be seen by a composition of his in the 
first volume of Dodsley's Collection, entitled Know Thyself. 
Akenside was a physician ; Armstrong, Goldsmith, and Smollett 
were physicians ; Dr. Cotton, poor Cowper's friend, author of the 
Visions, was another ; and so was Grainger, the translator of 
Tibullus, who wrote the thoughtful Ode on Solitude, and the 
beautiful ballad entitled Bryan and Pereene. Percy (who 
inserted the ballad with more feeling than propriety in his 
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry) says of Grainger, that he 
was " one of the most friendly, generous, and benevolent men he 
ever knew." Goldsmith, even in his own poverty, was known to 
have given guineas to the poor, by way of prescriptions; and 
when he died, his staircase in the Temple was beset by a crowd 
of mourners out of Fleet Street, such as Dives in his prosperity 
would sooner have laughed at, than Lazarus would, or Mary 
Magdalen. Smollett had his full portion of generosity in money 
matters, though he does not appear to have possessed so much of 
the customary delicacy; otherwise he never would have given 
" ostentatious " Sunday dinners to poor authors, upon whose 
heads he took the opportunity of cracking sarcastic jokes ! But 
he was a diseased subject, and probably had a blood as bad as 
his heart was good. Of Armstrong and Akenside we are not 
aware that any particular instances of generosity have been 
recorded, but they both had the usual reputation for benevolence, 
and wrote of it as if they deserved it. Akenside also excited the 
enthusiastic generosity of a friend ; which an ungenerous man is 
not likely to do, though undoubtedly it is possible he might, con- 
sidering the warmth of the heart in which it is excited. The 
debt of scholarship and friendship to the profession was hand- 
somely acknowledged in his instance by the affection of Dyson, 
who, when Akenside was commencing practice, assisted him with 
three hundred a year. That was the most magnificent/^ ever 
given ! 

"We know not, indeed, who is calculated to excite a liberal 
enthusiasm, if a liberal physician is not. There is not a fine 
corner in the mind and heart to which he does not appeal ; and 
in relieving the frame, he is too often the only means of making 
virtue itself comfortable. The physician is well-educated, well- 
bred, has been accustomed to the infirmities of his fellow- creatures, 



GARTH, PHYSICIANS, AND LOVE-LETTERS. 219 

therefore understands how much there is in them to be excused 
as well as relieved ; his manners are rendered soft by the gentle- 
ness required in sick-rooms ; he learns a Shakspearian value for 
a smile and a jest, by knowing how grateful to suffering is the 
smallest drop of balm ; and the whole circle of his feelings and 
his knowledge (generally of his success too, but that is not 
necessary) gives him a sort of divine superiority to the mercenary 
disgracers of his profession. There are pretenders and quacks, 
and foolish favourites in this as in all professions, and the world 
may occasionally be startled by discovering that there is such a 
phenomenon as a physician at once skilful and mean, eminent 
and selfish. But the ordinary jests on the profession are never 
echoed with greater good-will than by those who do not deserve 
them ; and to complete the merit of the real physician, — of the 
man whose heart and behaviour do good, as well as his prescrip- 
tions, — he possesses that humility in his knowledge which can- 
didly owns the limit of it, and which is at once the proudest, 
most modest, and most engaging proof of his attainments, be- 
cause it shows that what he does know he knows truly, and 
that he holds brotherhood with the least instructed of his fellow- 
creatures. 

It is a pity that some one, who loves the literature of the 
age of Queen Anne, and the sprightly fathers of English essay- 
writing, does not make a selection from the numerous smaller 
periodical works which were set up by Steele, and which in some 
instances were carried on but to a few numbers, — such as this 
of the Lover above mentioned, the Spinster, the Theatre, 
&c. They were generally, it is true, the offspring of haste and 
necessity ; but the necessity was that of a genius full of wit and 
readiness ; and a small volume of the kind, prefaced with some 
hearty semi-biographical retrospect of the man and his writings, 
would really, we believe, contain as good a specimen of the 
volatile extract of Steele (if the reader will allow us what seems a 
pun) as of his finest second-best papers out of the Tatler. We 
speak, we must own, chiefly from a knowledge of the Lover, 
never having even seen some of the others ; which is another 
reason for conjecturing that such a volume might be acceptable 
to many who are acquainted with his principal works. 

But there is another volume which has long been suggested 
to us by the Lover, and which would surpass in interest what- 
ever might be thus collected out of the whole literature of that 
day ; and that is (we here make a present of the suggestion to 



220 GAKTH, PHYSICIANS, AND LOYE-LETTERS. 

any one who has as much love, and more time for the work than 
we have) a Collection of Genuine Love-Letters ; not such stuff as 
Mrs. Behn and others have given to the world, but genuine in 
every sense of the word, — authentic, well written, and full of 
heart. Even those in which the heart is not so abundant, but 
in which it is yet to be found, elevating gallantry into its sphere, 
might be admitted ; such as one or two of Pope's to Lady Mary, 
and a pleasant one (if our memory does not deceive us) of Con- 
greve's to Arabella Hunt the singer. Eloisa's should be there 
by all means (not Abelard's, except by way of note or so, for they 
are far inferior ; as he himself was a far inferior person, and had 
little or no love in him except that of having his way). Those of 
Lady Temple to Sir William, when she was Miss Osborne, should 
not be absent. Steele himself would furnish some charming ones 
of the lighter sort (with heart enough too in them for half a 
dozen grave people; more, we fear, than " dear Prue " had to 
give him in return). There would be several, deeply affecting, 
out of the annals of civil and religious strife ; and the collection 
might be brought up to our own time, by some of those extra- 
ordinary outpourings of a mind remarkable for the prematurity as 
well as abundance of its passion and imagination, in the corre- 
spondence of Goethe with Bettina Brentano, who, in the words of 
Shelley, may truly be called a " child of love and light." * The 
most agreeable of metaphysicians, Abraham Tucker, author of the 
Light of Nature Pursued, collected, and copied out in two manu- 
script volumes, the letters which had passed between himself and 
a beloved wife, " whenever they happened to be absent from each 
other," under the title of a Picture of Artless Love. He used to 
read them to his daughters. These manuscripts ought to be 
extant somewhere, for he died only in the year 1744, and he 
gave one of them to her father's family, while the other was 
most likely retained as an heir-loom in his own, which became 
merged into that of Mildmay. The whole book would most 
likely be welcome to the reading world ; but at all events some 
extracts from it could hardly fail to enrich the collection we have 
been recommending. 

We will here give out of the Lover itself, and as a sample 
both of that periodical of Steele's, and of the more tragical 
matter of what this volume of love-letters might consist of, 
two most exquisite specimens, which passed between a wife 

* See the two volumes from the German, not long since published, 
under the title of Goethe's Correspondence with a Child. 



GARTH, PHYSICIANS, AND LOVE-LETTERS. 221 

and her hushand on the eve of the latter's death on the scaffold. 
He was one of the victims to sincerity of opinion during the civil 
wars ; and the more sincere, doubtless, and public- spirited, in 
proportion to his domestic tenderness ; for private and public 
affection, in their noblest forms, are identical at the core. Two 
more truly loving hearts we never met with in book ; nor such as 
to make us more impatiently desire that they had continued to 
live and bless one another. But there is a triumph in calamity 
itself, when so beautifully borne. Posterity takes such sufferers 
to its heart, and crowns them with its tears. 

" There are very tender things/' says Steele, "to be recited 
from the writings of poetical authors, which express the utmost 
tenderness in an amorous commerce ; but, indeed, I never read 
anything which, to me, had so much nature and love, as an 
expression or two in the following letter. But the reader must 
be let into the circumstances of the matter to have a right sense 
of it. The epistle was written by a gentlewoman to her husband, 
who was condemned to suffer death. The unfortunate catastrophe 
happened at Exeter in the time of the late rebellion. A gentle- 
man, whose name was Penruddock, to whom the letter was 
written, was barbarously sentenced to die, without the least 
appearance of justice. He asserted the illegality of his enemies' 
proceedings, with a spirit worthy his innocence ; and the night 
before his death his lady wrote to him the letter which I so much 
admire, and is as follows : — 

" Mrs. Pekrttddock's last Letter to her Husband. 

" ' My dear Heart — 

" * My sad parting was so far from making me forget you, that I 
scarce thought upon myself since ; but wholly upon you. Those dear 
embraces which I yet feel, and shall never lose, being the faithful testimo- 
nies of an indulgent husband, have charmed my soul to such a reverence 
of your remembrance, that were it possible, I would, with my own blood, 
cement your dead limbs to live again, and (with reverence) think it no sin 
to rob Heaven a little longer of a martyr. Oh ! my dear, you must now 
pardon my passion, this being my last (oh, fatal word !) that ever you will 
receive from me ; and know, that until the last minute that I can imagine 
you shall live, I shall sacrifice the prayers of a Christian, and the groans of 
an afflicted wife. And when you are not (which sure by sympathy I shall 
know), I shall wish my own dissolution with you, that so we may go hand 
in hand to Heaven. 'Tis too late to tell you what I have, or rather have 
not clone for you ; how being turned out of doors because I came to beg 
mercy • the Lord lay not your blood to their charge. I would fain dis- 
course longer with you, but dare not ; passion begins to drown my reason, 
and will rob me of my devoirs, which is all I have left to serve you. Adieu, 
therefore, ten thousand times, my dearest dear ; and since I must never see 



222 GARTH, PHYSICIANS, AND LOVE-LETTERS. 

you more, take this prayer, — May your faith be so strengthened that your 
constancy may continue ; and then I know Heaven will receive you ; 
whither grief and love will in a short time (I hope) translate, 

" ' My dear, 
" ' Your sad, but constant wife, even to love your ashes when dead, 

" ' Arundel Penruddock. 

" i May the 3rd, 1655, eleven o'clock at night. Your children beg your 
blessing, and present their duties to you.' " 

" I do not know," resumes Steele, " that I ever read anything 
so affectionate as that line, Those dear' embraces which I yet feel: 
Mr. Penruddock's answer has an equal tenderness, which I shall 
recite also, that the town may dispute whether the man or the 
woman expressed themselves the more kindly ; and strive to 
imitate them in less circumstances of distress ; for from all no 
couple upon earth are exempt : — 

"Mr. Penruddock's last Letter to his Lady. 

" l Dearest best of Creatures l t 

" ' I had taken leave of the world when I received yours : it did at 
once recall my fondness to life, and enable me to resign it. As I am sure 
I shall leave none behind me like you, which weakens my resolution to part 
from you, so when I reflect I am going to a place where there are none but 
such as you, I recover my courage. But fondness breaks in upon me ; and 
as I would not have my tears flow to-morrow, when your husband, and the 
father of our dear babes, is a public spectacle, do not think meanly of me, 
that I give way to grief now in private, when I see my sand run so fast, 
and within a few hours I am to leave you helpless, and exposed to the 
merciless and insolent that have wrongfully put me to a shameless death, 
and will object the shame to my poor children. I thank you for all your 
goodness to me, and will endeavour so to die as to do nothing unworthy 
that virtue in which we have mutually supported each other, and for which 
I desire you not to repine that I am first to be rewarded, since you ever 
preferred me to yourself in all other things. Afford me, with cheerfulness, 
the precedence in this. I desire your prayers in the article of death ; for 
my own will then be offered for you and yours. 

" ' J. Penruddock.' " 

Steele says nothing after this ; and it is fit, on every account, 
to respect his silence. 



( 223 ) 



COWLEY AND THOMSON. 

nature intended poetry as well as matter of fact — mysterious 
anecdote of cowley — remarkable similarity between him 
and thomson — their supposed difference (as tory and whig) 
— Thomson's behaviour to lady Hertford — his answer to the 
genius- starvation principle his letters to his friends, &c. 

" Nee vos, dulcissima mundi 
Nomina, vos, Musse, libertas, otia, libri, 
Hortique, sylvasque, anima remanente relinquam." 

" Nor by me e'er shall you, 
You, of all names the sweetest and the best, 
You, Muses, books, and liberty, and rest, 
You, gardens, fields, and woods, forsaken be, 
As long as life itself forsakes not me." 

These verses, both the Latin and the translation, are from the 
pen of an excellent man, and a better poet than he has latterly 
been thought — Cowley. But how came he, among his " sweetest 
and best names," to omit love? to leave out all mention of the 
affections ? 

Thereby hangs an anecdote that shall be noticed presently. 
Meantime, with a protest against the omission, the verses make a 
good motto for this verse-loving paper, begun on a fine summer's 
morning, amidst books and flowers. Our position is not so lucky 
as Cowley's in respect to " woods," having nothing to boast of, 
in that matter, beyond the sub-urbanity of a few lime-trees and 
the neighbourhood of Kensington Gardens ; but this does not hinder 
us from loving woods with all our might, nay, aggravates the 
intensity of the passion. A like reason favours our yearning 
after "liberty" and "rest," and especially after "fields;" the 
brickmakers threatening to swallow up those which the nursery- 
men have left us. 

Well ! We always hope to live in the thick of all that we 
desire, some day ; and, meantime, we do live there as well as 
imagination can contrive it ; which she does in a better manner 
than is realized by many a possessor of oaks thick as his peri- 



224 COWLEY AND THOMSON. 

cranium. A book, a picture, a memory, puts us, in the twinkling 
of an eye, in the midst of the most enchanting solitudes, reverend 
with ages, beautiful with lawns and deer, glancing with the lovely 
forms of nymphs. And it does not at all baulk us, when we look 
up and find ourselves sitting in a little room with a fire-place, 
and, perhaps, with some town-cry coming along the street. Your 
muffin- crier is a being as full of the romantic mystery of exist- 
ence, as a Druid or an ancient Tuscan ; and what would books or 
pictures be, or cities themselves, without that mind of man, in the 
circuit of whose world the solitudes of poetry lie, as surely as the 
last Court Calendar does, or the traffic of Piccadilly. Do the 
" green" minds of the " knowing " fancy that Nature intended 
nothing to be made out of trees, but coach-wheels, and a park or 
so ? Oh, they of little wit ! Nature intended trees to do all 
that they do do ; that is to help to furnish poetry for us as well 
as houses ; to exist in the imagination as well as in Buckingham- 
shire ; to 

" Live in description, and look green in song.*' 

Nature intended that there should be odes and epic poems, quite 
as much as that men in Bond Street should eat tartlets, or that 
there should be Howards and Rothschilds. The Earl of Surrey 
would have told you so, who was himself a Howard, and who 
perished on the scaffold, while his poems have gone on, living and 
lasting. Nature's injunction was not only, " Let there be things 
tangible;" but " Let there be things also imaginable, fanciful, 
spiritual ;" thoughts of fairies and elysiums ; Arcadias two- fold, 
one in real Greece, and the other in fabulous ; Cowleys and 
Miltons as well as Cromwells ; immortal Shakspeares, as w r ell as 
customs that would perish but for their notice. 

Alas! " your poet," nevertheless, is not exempt from " your 
weakness," as Falstaff would have phrased it. He occasionally 
undergoes a double portion, in the process of a sensibility which 
exists for our benefit ; and good, innocent, sequestered Cowley, 
whose desires in things palpable appear to have been bounded by 
a walk in a wood, and a book under his arm, must have expe- 
rienced some strange phases of suffering. Sprat says of him, 
that he was the "most amiable of mankind;" and yet it is re- 
ported, that in his latter days he could not endure the sight of a 
woman ! that he would leave the room if one came into it ! 

Here is a case for the respectful consideration of the philoso- 
pher — the medical, we suspect. 



COWLEY AND THOMSON. 225 

The supposed reason is, that he had been disappointed in 
love, perhaps ill-treated. But in so gentle a mind as his, dis- 
appointment could hardly have taken the shape of resentment 
and incivility towards the whole sex. The probability is, that it 
was some morbid weakness. He should have out-walked and 
diverted it, instead of getting fat and looking at trees out of a 
window ; he should have gone more to town and the play, or 
written more plays of his own, instead of relieving his morbidity 
with a bottle too much in company with his friend the Dean. 

We suspect, however, from the portraits of Cowley, that his 
blood was not very healthy by nature. There is a young as well 
as an old portrait of him, by good artists, evident likenesses ; and 
both of them have a puffy, unwholesome look ; so that his flesh 
seems to have been an uncongenial habitation for so sweet a soul. 
The sweeter it, for preserving its dulcitudes as it did. 

This morbid temperament is, perhaps, the only difference in 
their natures between two men, in whom we shall proceed to 
notice what appears to us a remarkable similarity in every other 
respect, almost amounting to a sort of identity. It is like a 
metempsychosis without a form of change ; or only with such as 
would naturally result from a difference of times. Cowley and 
Thomson were alike in their persons, their dispositions, and their 
fortunes. They were both fat men, not handsome ; very amiable 
and sociable ; no enemies to a bottle ; taking interest both in 
politics and retirement ; passionately fond of external nature, of 
fields, woods, gardens, &c. ; bachelors, — in love, and disappointed ; 
faulty in style, yet true poets in themselves, if not always the best 
in their writings, that is to say, seeing everything in its poetical 
light ; childlike in their ways ; and, finally, they were both made 
easy in their circumstances by the party whom they served ; both 
went to live at a little distance from London, and on the banks of 
the Thames ; and both died of a cold and fever, originating in a 
careless exposure to the weather, not without more than a sus- 
picion of previous " jollification " with " the Dean" on Cowley's 
part, and great probability of a like vivacity on that of Thom- 
son, who had been visiting his friends in London. Thomson 
could push the bottle like a regular bon vivant : and Cowley's 
death is attributed to his having forgotten his proper bed, and 
slept in a field all night, in company with his reverend and jovial 
friend Sprat. Johnson says that, at Chertsey, the villagers talked 
of " the drunken Dean." 

But in one respect, it may be alleged, Cowley and Thomson 

15 



226 COWLEY AND THOMSON* 

were different, and very different ; for one was a Tory, and the 
other a Whig. 

True, — nominally, and by the accident of education ; that is 
to say, Cowley was brought up on the Tory side, and Thomson 
on the Whig ; and loving their fathers and mothers and friends, 
and each seeing his cause in its best possible light, they naturally 
adhered to it, and tried to make others think as well of it as they 
did themselves. But the truth is, that neither of them was 
Whig or Tory, in the ordinary sense of the word. Cowley was 
no fonder of power in the understood Tory sense, than Thomson 
was of liberty in the restricted, unprospective sense of the parti- 
sans of King William. Cowley was for the beau ideal of Toryism ; 
that is, for order and restraint, as being the only safeguards of 
liberty ; and Thomson was for a liberty and freedom of service, 
the eventual realization of which would have satisfied the most 
romantic of Radicals. See his poems throughout, especially the 
one entitled Liberty. Cowley never vulgarised about Cromwell, 
as it was the fashion for his party to do. He thought him a bad 
man, it is true, but also a great man ; he said nobler things about 
him than any royalist of his day, except Andrew Marvell (if the 
latter is to be called a royalist) ; and he was so free from a 
factious partiality, that in his comedy, Cutter of Coleman Street, 
which he intended as a satire on the Puritans, he could not help 
seeing such fair play to all parties, that the irritated Tories pro- 
nounced it a satire on themselves. There are doubtless many 
such Tories still as Cowley, owing to the same predisposing cir- 
cumstances of education and turn of mind — men who only see 
the cause in its graceful and poetical light — whose admiration of 
power takes it for granted that the power will be well exercised, 
and whose loyalty is an indulgence of the disposition to personal 
attachment. But if education had given the sympathies of these 
men their natural tendency to expand, they would have been on 
the anti-Tory side ; just as many a pretended lover of liberty 
(whom you may know by his arrogance, ill-nature, or other want 
of sympathy) has no business on the Whig or Radical side, but 
ought to proclaim himself what he is, — a Tory. Had Thomson, 
in short, lived in Cowley's time, and had a royalist to his father, 
the same affections that made him a Whig in the time of George 
the Second, would have made him just the sort of Tory that 
Cowley was during the Bestoration ; and had Cowley had a Whig 
for his father, and lived in the little Court of Frederick Prince of 
Wales, he would have been just the same sort of Whig politician 



COWLEY AND THOMSON. 227 

as Thomson ; for it was rather personal than political friendship 
that procured Cowley his ease at last ; and Frederick, Prince of 
Wales, was mean enough to take back the pension he had given 
Thomson, because his Highness had become offended with the 
poet's friend, Lyttleton. Such is the completion of the remark- 
able likeness in character and fortunes between these two excellent 
men. 

Nor is the spirit of the similarity injured by the fault of the 
one as a writer consisting in what are called conceits, and that of 
the other in turgidity ; for neither of the faults touched the heart 
of the writers, while both originated in the very humility and 
simplicity of the men, and in that disposition to admire others 
which is most dangerous to the most ingenious though not to the 
greatest men. Cowley and Thomson both fancied their own 
natural language not great enough for their subjects ; and Cowley, 
in the wit which he found in fashion, and Thomson, in the Latin 
classics which were the favourites of the more sequestered world 
of his youth, thought he had found a style which, while it en- 
deared him to those whom he most regarded among the living, 
would, by the very help of their sanction, secure him with the 
ages to come. 

We will conclude this article with a few notes suggested by 
the latest edition of Thomson (Pickering's), by far the fullest of 
any, and containing letters and early poems never before pub- 
lished. 

" Thomson," observes his new biographer, in this editiou, 
" was one summer the guest of Lady Hertford at her country 
seat ; but Johnson says, he took more pleasure in carousing with 
her lord than in assisting her studies, and therefore was never 
again invited — a charge which Lord Buchan eagerly repels, but 
upon as little authority as it was originally made." 

Now this charge is in all probability true ; and what does it 
amount to ? Not to anything that the noble critic need have 
been eager to repel. It was impossible for Thomson to treat 
Lady Hertford unkindly ; but nothing is more probable than that 
he was puzzled with her " studies," whereas he knew well what to 
do with her husband's wine ; and hence may have arisen a 
dilemma. The mistake was in good Lady Hertford's dignifying 
her innocent literary whims with the name of " studies," and 
thinking there was anything on the critic's part to " study" in 
them. 

In the following happy passage Thomson has completely 



228 COWLEY AND THOMSON, 

refuted the argument of those mechanical and not very humane 
or modest understandings, who, because they will only work for 
" a consideration" themselves, and feel that without restrictions 
upon them they would possibly burst out of bounds and do 
nothing, tell us that the only way to get works of genius done by 
men of genius is to keep them half-starved, and so force them. 
The mistake arises from their knowing nothing of the nature of 
genius ; which is a thing that can no more help venting what fills 
and agitates it, than the flower can help secreting honey, or than 
light, as Thomson says, can help shining. For " genius " read 
" mechanical talent" like their own, and there might be some- 
thing to say for their argument, if cruelty were not always a bad 
argument, and the harm done to the human spirit by it not to be 
risked for any imaginary result of good. 

" What you observe concerning the pursuit of poetry, so far engaged in 
it as I am, is certainly just. Besides, let him quit it who can, and ' erit mihi 
magnus Apollo/ or something as great. A true genius, like light, must be 
beaming forth, as a false one is an incurable disease. One would not, how- 
ever, climb Parnassus, any more than your mortal hills, to fix for ever on 
the barren top. No ; it is some little dear retirement in the vale below that 
gives the right relish to the prospect, which, without that, is nothing but 
enchantment ; and, though pleasing for some time, at last leaves us in a 
desert. The great fat doctor of Bath * told me that poets should be kept 
poor, the more to animate their genius. This is like the cruel custom of 
putting a bird's eyes out that it may sing the sweeter ; but, surely, they sing 
sweetest amidst the luxuriant woods, while the full spring blooms around 
them." 

The last biographer of Thomson does not seem to have 
thought it necessary to enter into any niceties of judgment on 
various points that come under his notice. He gives an anecdote 
that was new to us, respecting Allan Eamsay's Gentle Shepherd, 
but leaves the degree of credit belonging to it to be determined 
by the reader : — 

" About thirty years ago," says the story, " there was a respectable old 
man of the name of John Steel, who was well acquainted with Allan 
Ramsay ; and he told John Steel himself, that when Mr. Thomson, the 
author of The Seasons, was in his shop at Edinburgh, getting himself 
shaven, Ramsay was repeating some of his poems. Mr. Thomson says to 
him, * I have something to emit to the world, but I do not wish to father 
it.' Ramsay asked what he would give him, and he would father it. 
Mr. Thomson replied, all the profit that arose from the publication. * A 
bargain be it,' said Ramsay. Mr. Thomson delivered him the manuscript. 
So, from what is said above, Mr. Thomson, the author of The Seasons, is 

* Probably Cheyne. 



COWLEY AND THOMSON. 229 

the author of The Gentle Shepherd, and Allan Ramsay is the father of it. 
This, I believe, is the truth." 

There is not a trace of resemblance to Thomson's style in the 
Gentle Shepherd. It is far more natural and off-hand ; though 
none of its flights are so high, nor would you say that the poet 
(however charming — and he is so) is capable of such fine things 
as Thomson. And then the politics are Tory ! These tales 
originate in mere foolish envy. 

The biographer gives an opinion respecting Thomson's letters, 
which appears to us the reverse of being well founded : and he 
adds a reason for it, very little characteristic surely of so modest 
and single-hearted a man as the poet, who would never have been 
hindered from writing to a friend, merely because he thought he 
did not excel in letter- writing. " It must be evident," says he, 
' ' from the letters in this memoir, that Thomson did not excel in 
correspondence ; and his dislike to writing letters, which was very 
great, may have been either the cause or effect of his being 
inferior in this respect to other poets of the last century." 

His dislike to writing was pure indolence. He reposed upon 
the confidence which his friends had in his affection, secure of 
their pardon for his not writing. When any particular good was 
to be done, he could write fast enough ; and he always wrote well 
enough. We have just given a specimen ; and here follow a few 
more bits out of the very same collection existing, which are at 
once natural and new enough to show how rich, in fact, the letters 
are, and what a pity it is he did not write more. 

Speaking of a little sum (12/.) which he wished to borrow of 
a friend to help a sister in business, he says — 

" I will not draw upon you, in case you be not prepared to defend your- 
self ; but if your purse be valiant, please to inquire for Jean or Elizabeth 
Thomson, at the Rev. Mr. Gusthart's ; and if this letter be not a sufficient 
testimony of the debt, I will send you whatever you desire. 

" It is late, and I would not lose this post ; like a laconic man of 
business, therefore, I must here stop short ; though I have several things 
to impart to you, through your canal,* to the dearest, truest-hearted youth 
that treads on Scottish ground. The next letter I write you shall be washed 
clean from business in the Castalian fountain. 

" I am whipping and spurring to finish a tragedy for you this winter, 
but am still at some distance from the goal, which makes me fear being 
distanced. Remember me to all friends ; and, above them all, to Mr. 
Forbes. Though my affection to him is not fanned by letters, yet is it as 

* Channel. " Canal," I presume, was a Scotticism, 



230 COWLEY AND THOMSON, 

high as when I was his brother in the vertii, and played at chess with him 
in a post-chaise." 

To the sawe.— "Petty" (that is, Dr. Patrick Murdoch, the "little 
round, fat, oily man of God " in the Castle of Indolence) " came here two 
or three days ago ; I have not yet seen the round man of God to be. He 
is to be parsonined a few days hence : how a gown and cassock will become 
him ! and with what a holy leer he will edify the devout females ! There 
is no doubt of his having a call, for he is immediately to enter upon a 
tolerable living. God grant him more, and as fat as himself. It rejoices 
me to see one worthy, honest, excellent man, raised, at least, to inde- 
pendence. " 

To Doctor Cranston. — " My spirits have gotten such a serious turn by 
these reflections, that, although I be thinking on Misjohn, I declare I shall 
hardly force a laugh before we part ; for this, I think, will be my last letter 
from Edinburgh, for I expect to sail every day. Well, since I was speaking 
of that merry soul, I hope he is as bright, as easy, as degage, as susceptible 
of an intense laugh as he used to be ; tell him, when you see him, that I 
laugh, in imagination, with him ; — ha, ha, ha ! " 

To Mr. Patteson (his deputy in the Inspector- Generalship of the Lee- 
ward Islands, and one of the friends whom he describes in the Castle of 
Indolence). — " I must recommend to your favour and protection Mr. 
James Smith, searcher in St. Christopher's ; and I beg of you as occasion 
shall serve, and as you find he merits it, to advance him in the business of 
the customs. He is warmly recommended to me by Sargent, who, in 
verity, turns out one of the best men of our youthful acquaintance — honest, 
honourable, friendly, and generous. If we are not to oblige one another, 
life becomes a paltry, selfish affair, a pitiful morsel in a corner." 

We hope that " here be proofs" of Thomson's having been 
as sincerely cordial, and even eloquent in his letters, as in his 
other writings. They have, it is true, in other passages, a little 
of the higher and more elaborate tone of his poetry, but only just 
enough to show how customary the tone was to him in his most 
serious moments, and therefore an interesting evidence of the sort 
of complexional nature there was in his very art — something analo- 
gous to his big, honest, unwieldy body; " more fat," to use his 
own words, " than bard beseem'd," but with a heart inside it for 
everything good and graceful. 



( 231 ) 



BOOKSTALLS AND "GALATEO." 

BENEFICENCE OF BOOKSTALLS — " GALATEO, OR A TREATISE ON TOLITE- 

NESS" — SWIFT— ILL-BREEDINC OF FASHION CURIOUS INSTANCE OF 

ITALIAN DELICACY OF REPROOF. 

Great and liberal is the magic of the bookstalls ; truly deserved 
is the title of cheap shops. Your second-hand bookseller is 
second to none in the worth of the treasure which he dispenses ; 
far superior to most ; and infinitely superior in the modest profits 
he is content with. So much so, that one really feels ashamed 
sometimes to pay him such nothings for his goods. In some 
instances (for it is not the case with every one) he condescends 
even to expect to be " beaten down" in the price he charges, 
petty as it is ; and accordingly, he is good enough to ask more 
than he will take, as though he did nothing but refine upon the 
pleasures of the purchaser. Not content with valuing knowledge 
and delight at a comparative nothing, he takes ingenious steps to 
make even that nothing less ; and under the guise of a petty 
struggle to the contrary (as if to give you an agreeable sense of 
your energies) seems dissatisfied unless he can send you away 
thrice blessed, — blessed with the book, blessed with the cheap- 
ness of it, and blessed with the advantage you have had over him 
in making the cheapness cheaper. Truly, we fear that out of a 
false shame we have too often defrauded our second-hand friend 
of the generous self-denial he is thus prepared to exercise in our 
favour ; and by giving him the price set down in his catalogue, 
left him with impressions to our disadvantage. 

And yet who can see treasures of wisdom and beauty going 
for a price which seems utterly unworthy of them, and stand 
haggling, with any comfort, for a sixpence or threepence more or 
less ; doubting whether the merits of Shakspeare or Spenser can 
bear the weight of another fourpenny-piece ; or whether the 
volume that Alexander the Great put into a precious casket, has 
a right to be estimated at the value of a box of wafers ? 

To be serious ; — they who can afford to give a second-hand 
bookseller what he asks in his catalogue, may in general do it 



232 BOOKSTALLS AND " GALATEO." 

with good reason, as well as a safe conscience. He is one of an 
anxious and industrious class of men compelled to begin the 
world with laying out ready money and living very closely : and if 
he prospers, the commodities and people he is conversant with 
encourage the good impressions with which he set out, and 
generally end in procuring him a reputation for liberality as well 
as acuteness. 

Now observe. Not long since, we picked up, within a short 
interval of each other, and for eighteenpence, versions of the two 
most famous books of instruction in polite manners, that Italy, 
their first Christian teacher, refined the world with ; — the Courtier 
of Count Baldassare Castiglione (Raphael's friend), for a shilling; 
and the Galateo of Giovanni della Casa, Archbishop of Benevento 
(who wrote the banter on the name of John, which is translated 
in a certain volume of poems), for sixpence. The former we may 
perhaps give an account of another time. It is a book of greater 
pretensions, and embracing wider and more general considerations 
than Galateo ; which chiefly concerns itself with what is decorous 
and graceful in points more immediately relating to the person 
and presence. Some of these would be held of a trifling, and 
others of a coarse nature in the present day, when we are reaping 
the benefit of treatises of this kind ; and the translator, in his 
notes, has shown an unseasonable disposition to extract amuse- 
ment from that which the more gentlemanlike author feels bound 
but not willing to notice. Casa indeed, before he became a 
bishop, had not always been decent in his other works ; and it is 
curious to observe that these public teachers of decorum, who do 
not avoid, if they do not seek, subjects of an unpleasant nature, 
have generally been less nice in their own practice, than they 
might have been. Chesterfield himself was a man of no very 
refined imagination, and Swift is proverbially coarse. Swift 
indeed has said, that " a nice man is a man of nasty ideas," 
which may be true of some kinds of nice men, but is certainly 
not of all. The difference depends upon whether the leading idea 
of a man's mind is deformity or beauty. A man undoubtedly 
may avoid what is unbecoming, from thinking too nicely of it ; 
but in that case, the habitual idea is deformity. On the other 
hand, he may tend to the becoming, out of such an habitual love 
of the beautiful that the mind naturally adjusts itself to that side 
of things, without thinking of the other ; just as some people 
affect grace, and others are graceful by a certain harmony of 
nature, moving their limbs properly without endeavouring to do 



BOOKSTALLS AND "GALATEO." 233 

so ; or just as some people give money out of ostentation or for 
fear of being thought stingy, while others do it for the pure 
delight of giving. Swift might as well have said of these latter, 
that they were people of penurious ideas, as that all who love 
cleanness or decorum are people of nasty ones. The next step in 
logic would be, that a rose was only a rose, because it had an 
excessive tendency to be a thistle. 

Poor, admirable, perplexing Swift, the master-mind of his 
age ! He undid his own excuse, when he talked in this manner ; 
for with all his faults (some of them accountable only from a per- 
plexed brain), and with all which renders his writings in some 
respects so revolting, it might have been fancied that he made 
himself a sort of martyr to certain good intentions, if he had not 
taken these pains to undo the supposition. And perhaps there 
was something of the kind, after all, in his heroical ventures upon 
the reader's disgust ; though the habits of his contemporaries 
were not refined in this respect, and are therefore not favourable 
to the conclusion. 

A thorough treatise on good manners would startle the readers 
of any generation, our own certainly not excepted ; and partly 
for this reason, that out of the servility of a too great love of 
the prosperous we are always confounding fashion with good 
breeding ; though no two things can in their nature be more 
different, — fashion going upon the ground of assumption and 
exclusiveness, and good-breeding on that of general benevolence. 
A fashionable man may indeed be well bred ; — but it will go hard 
with him to be so and preserve his fashionableness. To take one 
instance out of a hundred : — there came up a fashion some time 
ago of confining the mutual introduction of a man's guests to the 
announcement of their names by a servant, on their entrance into 
the room ; so that unless you came last, everybody else did not 
know who you were ; and if you did, you yourself perhaps were 
not acquainted with the name of a single other person in the 
room. The consequence in a mixed party was obvious. Even 
the most tragical results might have taken place ; and perhaps 
have so. We were present on one occasion, where some persons 
of different and warm political opinions were among the company, 
and it was the merest chance in the world that one of them was 
not insulted by the person sitting next him, the conversation 
every instant tending to the subject of ratting, and some of the 
hearers sitting on thorns while it was going on. Now good 
breeding has been justly defined " the art of making those easy 



234 BOOKSTALLS AND "(3-ALATEO." 

with whom you converse ; " and here was a fashionable violation 
of it.* 

We shall conclude this article with an extract of the most 
striking passage in the book before us. It is entitled " Count 
Eichard," and is given as " an instance of delicate reproof." The 
reproof is delicate enough in some respects, and of a studied 
benevolence ; but whether the delicacy is perfect, we shall inquire 
a little when we have repeated it. At all events, the account is 
singular and interesting, as a specimen of the highest ultra- 
manners of those times, — the sixteenth century : — 

" There was, some years ago, a Bishop of Yerona, whose name was 
John Matthew Gilberto ; a man deeply read in the Holy Scriptures, and 
thoroughly versed in all kinds of polite literature. This prelate, amongst 
many other laudable qualities, was a man of great elegance of manners, and 
of great generosity ; and entertained those many gentlemen and people of 
fashion, who frequented his house, with the utmost hospitality, and (with- 
out transgressing the bounds of moderation) with such a decent magnifi- 
cence, as became a man of his sacred character. 

"It happened, then, that a certain nobleman, whom they called Count 
Richard, passing through Yerona at that time, spent several days with the 
bishop and his family ; in which every individual almost was distinguished 
by his learning and politeness. To whom, as this illustrious guest appeared 
particularly well bred, and every way agreeable, they were full of his 
encomiums ; and would have esteemed him a most accomplished person, 
but that his behaviour was sullied with one trifling imperfection ; which 
the prelate himself, also a man of great penetration, having observed, he 
communicated the affair, and canvassed it over with some of those with 
whom he was most intimate. "Who, though they were unwilling to offend, 
on so trifling an occasion, a guest of such consequence, yet at length agreed 
that it was worth while to give the Count a hint of it in a friendly manner. 
When therefore the Count, intending to depart the next day, had, with a 
good grace, taken leave of the family, the Bishop sent for one of his most 
intimate friends, a man of great prudence and discretion, and gave him a 
strict charge, that, when the Count was now mounted, and going to enter 
upon his journey, he should wait on him part of the way, as a mark of 
respect ; and, as they rode along, when he saw a convenient oppor- 
tunity, he should signify to the Count, in as gentle and friendly a 
manner as possible, that which had before been agreed upon amongst 
themselves. 

" Now this domestic of the Bishop's was a man of advanced age ; of 
singular learning, uncommon politeness, and distinguished eloquence, and 



* If it be too troublesome to the benevolence of fashionable society to 
introduce people to one another on these occasions viva voce, why not let 
the card of each person, on entering, be given to the servant, whose busi- 
ness it should be to put it in a rack for the purpose ; so that at least it might 
be known who was in the room, and who not ? 



BOOKSTALLS AND "GALATEO." 235 

also of a sweet and insinuating address, who had himself spent a great part 
of his life in the courts of great princes ; and was called, and perhaps is at 
this time called Galateo ; at whose request, and by whose encouragement, I 
first engaged in writing this treatise. 

" This gentleman, then, as he rode by the side of the Count, on his 
departure, insensibly engaged him in a very agreeable conversation on 
various subjects. After chattering together very pleasantly, upon one thing 
after another, and it appearing now time for him to return to Yerona, the 
Count began to insist upon his going back to his friends, and for that 
purpose he himself waited on him some little part of the way. There, at 
length, Galateo, with an open and free air, and in the most obliging expres- 
sions, thus addressed the Count : ' My Lord,' says he, ' the Bishop of 
Yerona, my master, returns you many thanks for the honour which you 
have done him : particularly that you did not disdain to take up your 
residence with him, and to make some little stay within the narrow confines 
of his humble habitation. 

" ' Moreover, as he is thoroughly sensible of the singular favour you 
have conferred upon bim on this occasion, he has enjoined me, in return, to 
make you a tender of some favour on his part ; and begs you, in a more 
particular manner, to accept cheerfully, and in good part, his intended 
kindness. 

" ' Now, my Lord, the favour is this : The Bishop, my master, esteems 
your Lordship as a person truly noble : so graceful in all your deportment, 
and so polite in your behaviour, that he hardly ever met with your equal in 
this respect ; on which account, as he studied your Lordship's character 
with a more than ordinary attention, and minutely scrutinized every part of 
it, he could not discover a single article which he did not judge to be 
extremely agreeable, and deserving of the highest encomiums. Nay, he 
would have thought your Lordship complete in every respect, without a 
single exception, but that in one particular action of yours, there appeared 
some little imperfection ; which is, that when you are eating at table, the 
motion of your lips and mouth causes an uncommon smacking kind of a 
sound, which is rather offensive to those who have the honour to sit at table 
with you. This is what the good prelate wished to have your Lordship 
acquainted with ; and entreats you, if it is in your power, carefully to 
correct this ungraceful habit for the future ; and that your Lordship would 
favourably accept this friendly admonition, as a particular mark of kind- 
ness ; for the Bishop is thoroughly convinced, that there is not a man in 
the whole world, besides himself, who would have bestowed upon your Lord- 
ship a favour of this kind.' 

" The Count, who had never before been made acquainted with this 
foible of his, on hearing himself thus taxed, as it were, with a thing of this 
kind, blushed a little at first, but, soon recollecting himself, like a man of 
sense, thus answered : ' Pray, sir, do me the favour to return my compli- 
ments to the Bishop, and tell his Lordship, that if the presents which 
people generally make to each other, were all of them such as his Lordship 
has made me, they would really be much richer than they now are. How- 
ever, sir, I cannot but esteem myself greatly obliged to the Bishop for this 
polite instance of his kindness and friendship for me ; and you may assure 
his Lordship, I will most undoubtedly use my utmost endeavours to correct 
this failing of mine for the future. In the mean time, sir, I take my leave 
of you, and wish you a safe and pleasant ride home,' " 



236 BOOKSTALLS AND "GALATEO." 

The translator has the following note on this story : — 

" It may be questioned, whether the freedom of an English University, 
where a man would be told of his foibles with an honest laugh, and a 
thump on the back, would not have shocked Count Richard less than this 
ceremonious management of the affair.''* — p. 23. 

The virtue of the thump on the back would certainly depend 
on the honesty of the laugh ; that is to say, on the real kindness 
of it, and the willingness of the laugher to undergo a similar 
admonition. But motives and results on these occasions are 
equally problematical ; and upon the whole, that sort of manual 
of politeness is not to be commended. 

With regard to the exquisite delicacy of the admonisher of 
Count Richard, exquisite it was to a certain literal extent, and not 
without much that is spiritual. It was studied and elaborate 
enough ; and above all, the adviser did not forget to dwell upon 
the good qualities of the person advised, and so make the fault as 
nothing in comparison. For as it has been well observed by a 
late philosopher (Godwin), that " advice is not disliked for its 
own sake, but because so few people know how to give it," so the 
ignorance generally shown by advisers consists in not taking care 
to do justice to the merits of the other party, and sheathing the 
wound to the self-love in all the balm possible. And it must be 
owned, that for the most part advisers are highly in want of 
advice themselves, and do but thrust their pragmatical egotism in 
the teeth of the vanity they are hurting. Now, without supposing 
that the exquisite Bishop and his messenger, who gave the advice 
to Count Richard, were not men of really good- breeding in most 
respects, or that the latter in particular did not deserve the 
encomiums bestowed on him by Monsignore della Casa, we 
venture, with infinite apologies and self-abasement before the 
elegant ghost of his memory, to think, that on the present 
occasion, he and his employer failed in one great point ; to wit, 
that of giving the Count to understand, that they themselves 
were persons who failed, or in the course of their experience had 
failed, in some nice points of behaviour ; otherwise (so we 
conceive they should have spoken) they would not have presumed 
to offer the benefit of that experience to so accomplished a gentle- 
man. For we hold, that unless it is a father or mother, or some 
such person, whose motives are to be counted of superior privilege 
to all chance of being misconstrued or resented (and even then, 
the less the privilege is assumed the better), nobody has a right 



BOOKSTALLS AND "GALATEO." 237 

to advise another, or can give it without presumption, who is not 
prepared to consult the common right of all to a considerate, or 
rather what may be called an equalizing, treatment of their self- 
love ; and as arrogant people are famous for the reverse of this 
delicacy, so it was an arrogation, though it did not imply habitual 
arrogance, in good Signor Galateo, to say not a syllable of his 
own defects, while pointing out one to his noble and most cour- 
teous guest. 



( 238 ) 



BOOKBINDING AND " HELIODOEUS." 

A RAPTURE TO THE MEMORY OF MATHIAS CORVINUS, KINO AND BOOK- 
BINDER BOOKBINDINO GOOD AND BAD — ETHIOPICS OF HELIODORUS 

STRIKING ACCOUNT OF RAISING A DEAD BODY. 

Gloey be to the memory of Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary 
and Bohemia, son of the great Huniades, and binder of books in 
vellum and gold. He placed fifty thousand volumes, says Warton, 
" in a tower which he had erected in the metropolis of Buda : 
and in this library he established thirty amanuenses, skilled in 
painting, illuminating, and writing, who under the conduct of 
Felix Ragusinus, a Dalmatian, consummately learned in the 
Greek, Chaldaic, and Arabic languages, and an elegant designer 
and painter of ornaments on vellum, attended incessantly to the 
business of transcription and decoration. The librarian was 
Bartholomew Fontius, a learned Florentine, the writer of many 
philological books, and a professor of Greek and oratory at 
Florence. When Buda was taken by the Turks in the year 1526, 
Cardinal Bozmanni offered, for the redemption of this inestimable 
collection, two hundred thousand pieces of the imperial money : 
yet without effect ; for the barbarous besiegers defaced or destroyed 
most of the books, in the violence of seizing the splendid covers 
and the silver bosses and clasps with which they were enriched. 
The learned Obsopaeus relates, that a book was brought him by 
an Hungarian soldier, which he had picked up with many others, 
in the pillage of King Corvino's library, and had preserved as a 
prize, merely because the covering retained some marks of gold 
and rich workmanship. This proved to be a manuscript of the 
Ethiopics of Heliodorus ; from which in the year 1534, Obso- 
paeus printed at Basil the first edition of that elegant Greek 
romance." * 

Methinks we see this tower, — doubtless in a garden, — the 
windows overlooking it, together with the vineyards which pro- 
duced the Tokay that his majesty drank while reading, agreeably 

* Hislory of English Poetry. Edition of 1840, v.ol. ii. p. 552. 



BOOKBINDING AND "hELIODORUS." 239 

to the notions of his brother bookworm, the King of Arragon. 
The transcribers and binders are at work in various apartments 
below ; midway is a bath, with an orangery ; — -and up aloft, but 
not too high to be above the tops of the trees through which he 
looks over the vineyards towards his beloved Greece and Italy, in 
a room tapestried with some fair story of Atalanta or the Golden 
Fleece, sits the king in a chair-couch, his legs thrown up and his 
face shaded from the sun, reading one of the passages we are 
about to extract from the romance of Heliodorus, — some illumina- 
tion in which casts up a light on his manly beard, tinging its 
black with tawny. 

What a fellow ! — Think of being king of the realms of Tokay, 
and having a library of fifty thousand volumes in vellum and 
gold, with thirty people constantly beneath you, copying, painting, 
and illuminating, and every day sending you up a fresh one to 
look at ! 

We were going to say, that Dr. Dibdin should have existed in 
those days, and been his majesty's chaplain, or his confessor. 
But we doubt whether he could have borne the bliss. (Vide his 
ecstasies, passim, on the charms of vellums, tall copies, and blind 
tooling.) Yet, as confessor and patron, they would admirably 
have suited. The doctor would have continually absolved the 
king from the sin of thinking of his next box of books during 
sermon-time, or looking at the pictures in his missal instead of 
reading it ; and the king would have been always bestowing 
benefices on the doctor, till the latter began to think he needed 
absolution himself. 

Not being a King of Hungary, nor rich, nor having a confessor 
to absolve us from sins of expenditure, how lucky is it that we 
can take delight in books whose outsides are of the homeliest 
description ! How willing are we to waive the grandeur of outlay ! 
how contented to pay for some precious volume a shilling instead 
-f two pounds ten ! Bind we would, if we could :« — there is no 
^ c ubt of that. We should have liked to challenge the majesty of 
slc mgary to a bout at bookbinding, and seen which would have 
a^dered the most intense and ravishing legaiura ; something, at 
which De Seuil, or Grollier himself, should have — 

" Sigh'd, and look'd, and sigh'd again ; " — 

something which would have made him own, that there was 
nothing between it and an angel's wing. Meantime, nothing comes 
amiss to us but dirt, or tatters, or cold, plain, calf, school 



240 BOOKBINDING AND " HELIODORUS, " 

binding, — a thing which we hate for its insipidity and formality, 
and for its attempting to do the business as cheaply and usefully 
as possible, with no regard to the liberality and picturesqueness 
befitting the cultivators of the generous infant mind. 

Keep from our sight all Selectee e Profanis, and Enfield's 
Speakers, bound in this manner ; and especially all Ovids, and 
all Exceiyta from the Greek. We would as lief see Ovid come 
to life in the dress of a Quaker, or Theocritus serving in a 
stationer's shop. (See the horrid, impossible dreams, which 
such incoherences excite !) Arithmetical books are not so bad in 
it ; and it does very well for the Ganger's Vade Mecum, or tall 
thin copies of Logarithms; but for anything poetical, or of a 
handsome universality like the grass or the skies, we would as 
soon see a flower whitewashed, or an arbour fit for an angel con- 
verted into a pew. 

But to come to the book before us. See what an advantage 
the poor reader of modern times possesses over the royal collector 
of those ages, who doubtless got his manuscript of Heliodorus's 
romance at a cost and trouble proportionate to the splendour he 
bestowed on its binding. An " argosie " brought it him from 
Greece or Italy, at a price rated by some Jew of Malta : or else 
his father got it with battle and murder out of some Greek 
ransom of a Turk ; whereas we bought our copy at a bookstall 
in Little Chelsea for tenjjence ! To be sure it is not in the 
original language ; nor did we ever read it in that language ; 
neither is the translation, for the most part, a good one ; and it 
is execrably printed. It is " done," half by a " person of 
quality," and half by Nahum Tate. There are symptoms of 
its being translated from an Italian version ; and perhaps the 
good bits come out of an older English one, mentioned by 
Warton. 

The (Ethiopids or (Ethiopian History of Heliodorus, other- 
wise called the Adventures of Theagenes and Chariclea, is a 
romance written in the decline of the Koman empire by a* 
Asiatic Greek of that name, who boasted to be descended fro 
the sun (Heliodorus is sun-given), and who afterwards becam 
Christian bishop of Tricca in Thessaly. It is said (but the story 
is apocryphal) that a synod, thinking the danger of a love 
romance aggravated by this elevation to the mitre, required of 
the author that he should give up either his book or his bishopric ; 
and that he chose to do the latter ; — a story so good, that it is a 
pity one must doubt it. The merits and defects of the work have 



BOOKBINDING AND " HELIODORUS." 241 

been stated at length by Mr. Dunlop,* apparently with great 
judgment. They may be briefly summed up, as consisting, — the 
defects, in want of character and probability, sameness of vicissi- 
tude, and inartificiality of ordonnance ; the merits, in an inte- 
resting and gradual development of the story, variety and vivacity 
of description, elegance of style, and one good character, — that of 
the heroine, who is indeed very charming, being " endued with 
great strength of mind, united to a delicacy of feeling, and an 
address which turns every situation to the best advantage." The 
work also abounds in curious local accounts of Egypt, and of the 
customs of the time, interesting to an antiquary. 

The impression produced upon our own mind after reading 
the version before us, accorded with Mr. Dunlop's criticism, and 
was a feeling betwixt confusion and delight, as if we had been 
witnessing the adventures of a sort of Grecian Harlequin and 
Columbine, perpetually running in and out of the stage, accom- 
panied by an old gentleman, and pursued by thieves and 
murderers. The incidents are most gratuitous, but often beauti- 
fully described, and so are the persons ; and the work has been 
such a general favourite, that the subsequent Greek romancers 
copied it ; the old French school of romance arose of it ; it has 
been used by Spenser, Tasso, and Guarini ; imitated by Sydney 
in his Arcadia; painted from by Kaphael ; and succeeding 
romancers, with Sir Walter Scott for the climax, have adopted 
from it the striking and picturesque nature of their exordiums. 

The following is one of the two subjects chosen by Raphael, — 
a description of a love at first sight, painted with equal force and 
delicacy. A sacrificial rite is being performed, at which the hero 
of the story first meets with the heroine : — 

" This he said, and began to make the offering ; while Theagenes took 
the torch from the hands of Chariclea. Sure, Knemon, that the soul is a 
divine thing, and allied to the superior nature, we know by its operations 
and functions. As soon as these two beheld each other, their souls, as if 
acquainted at first sight, pressed to meet their equals in worth and beauty. 
At first they remained amazed and without motion ; at length, though 
slowly, Chariclea gave, and he received the torch ; so fixing their eyes on one 
another, as if they had been calling to remembrance where they had met 
before, then they smiled, but so stealingly, as it could hardly be perceived, 
but a little in their eyes, and as ashamed, they hid away the motions of joy 
with blushes ; and again, when affection (as I imagine) had engaged, their 
hearts, they grew pale." — p. 109. 

* History of Fiction. Second edition, vol. i. p. 30. 

16 



242 BOOKBINDING AND " HELIODORUS." 

But what we chiefly wrote this article for, was to lay before 
the reader a most striking description of a witch raising the dead 
body of her son, to ask it unlawful questions. The heroine and 
her guardian, who are resting in a cave to which the hag has con- 
ducted them while benighted, become involuntary witnesses of the 
scene, which is painted with a vigour worthy of Spenser or Julio 
Romano. The old wretch, bent on her unhallowed purposes, 
forcing the body to stand upright, and leaping about a pit and a 
fire with a naked sword in her hand and a bloody arm, presents a 
rare image of withered and feeble wickedness, made potent by 
will :— 

" Chariclea sat down in another corner of the cell, the moon then rising 
and lightening all without. Calasiris fell into a fast sleep, "being tired at 
once with age and the long journey. Chariclea, kept awake with care, became 
spectator of a most horrid scene, though usual among those people. Eor 
the woman supposing herself to be alone, and not likely to be interrupted, 
nor so much as to be seen by any person, fell to her work. In the first 
place she digged a pit in the earth, and then made a fire on each side 
thereof, placing the body of her son between the two plains ; then taking a 
pitcher from off a three-legged stool that stood by, she poured honey into 
the pit, milk out of a second, and so out of a third, as if she had been doing 
sacrifice. Then taking a piece of dough, formed into the likeness of a man, 
crowned with laurel and bdellium, she cast it into the pit. After this, 
snatching a sword that lay in the field, with more than Bacchanal fury 
(addressing herself to the moon in many strange terms) she launched her 
arm, and with a branch of laurel bedewed with her blood, she besprinkled 
the fire : with many other prodigious ceremonies. Then bowing herself to 
the body of her son, whispering in his ear, she awakened him, and by the 
force of her charms, made him to stand upright. Chariclea, who had 
hitherto looked on with sufficient fear, was now astonished ; wherefore she 
waked Calasiris to be likewise spectator of what was done. They stood 
unseen themselves, but plainly beheld, by the light of the moon and fire, 
where the business was performed ; and by reason of the little distance, 
heard the discourse, the beldam now bespeaking her son in a louder voice. 
The question which she asked him was, if her son, who was yet living, 
should return safe home ? To this he answered nothing ; only nodding his 
head, gave her doubtful conjectures of his success ; and therewith fell flat 
upon his face. She turned the body with the face upwards, and again 
repeating her question, but with much greater violence, uttering many incan- 
tations ; and leaping up and down with the sword in her hand, turning 
sometimes to the fire, and then to the pit, she once more awakened him, 
and setting him upright, urged him to answer her in plain words, and not 
in doubtful signs. In the mean time Chariclea desired Calasiris, that they 
might go nearer, and inquire of the old woman about Theagenes ; but he 
refused, affirming that the spectacle was impious ; that it was not decent 
for any person of priestly office to be present, much less delighted with such 
performances ; that prayers and lawful sacrifices were their business ; and 
not with impure rites and inquiries of death, as that Egyptian did, of which 



BOOKBINDING AND " HELIODORUS." 243 

mischance had made us spectators. While he was thus speaking, the dead 
person made answer, with a hollow and dreadful tone : ' At first I spared you, 
mother (said he), and suffered your transgressing against human nature and 
the laws of destiny, and by charms and witchcraft disturbing those things 
which should rest inviolated : for even the dead retain a reverence towards 
their parents, as much as is possible for them ; but since you exceed all 
bounds, being not content with the wicked action you began, nor satisfied 
with raising me up to give you signs, but also force me, a dead body, to 
speak, neglecting my sepulture, and keeping me from the mansion of 
departed souls : hear those things which at first I was afraid to acquaint you 
withal. Neither your son shall return alive, nor shall yourself escape that 
death by the sword, which is due to your crimes ; but conclude that life in 
a short time, which you have spent in wicked practices : forasmuch as you 
have not only done these things alone, but made other persons spectators 
of these dreadful mysteries that were so concealed in outward silence, 
acquainting them with the affairs and fortunes of the dead. One of them 
is a priest, which makes it more tolerable ; who knows, by his wisdom, that 
such things are not to be divulged ; — a person dear to the Gods, who shall 
with his arrival prevent the duel of his sons prepared for combat, and com- 
pose their difference. But that which is more grievous is, that a virgin has 
been spectator of all that has been done, and heard what was said : a virgin 
and lover, that has wandered through countries in search of her betrothed ; 
with whom, after infinite labours and dangers, she shall arrive at the out- 
most part of the earth, and live in royal state.' Having thus said, he again 
fell prostrate. The hag being sensible who were the spectators, armed as 
she was with a sword, in a rage sought them amongst the dead bodies where 
she thought they lay concealed, to kill them, as persons who had invaded 
her, and crossed the operation of her charms. While she was thus 
employed, she struck her groin upon the splinter of a spear that stuck in 
the ground, by which she died ; immediately fulfilling the prophecy of 
her son." 

This surely is a very striking fiction. "We recommend the 
whole work to the lovers of old books ; and must not forget to 
notice the pleasant surprise expressed by Warton at the supposed 
difference of fortune between its author who lost a bishopric by 
writing it, and Amyot, the Frenchman, who was rewarded with 
an abbey for translating it. Amyot himself afterwards became a 
bishop. We may add, as a pleasant coincidence, that it was one 
of Amyot' s pupils and benefactors, — Henry the Second, — who 
gave a bishopric to the lively Italian novelist, Banclello. Books 
were books in those days, not batches, by the baker's dozen, 
turned out every morning ; and the gayest of writers were held in 
serious estimation accordingly. 



( 244 






VEB-VEBT;* OK, THE PAEEOT OF THE NUNS. 

(FROM THE FRENCH OF GRESSET.) 

" What words have passed thy lips ? " — Milton. 

INTRODUCTION. 

This story is the subject of one of the most agreeable poems in 
the French language, and has the additional piquancy of having 
been written by the author when he was a Jesuit. The delicate 
moral which is insinuated against the waste of time in nunneries, 
and the perversion of good and useful feeling into trifling chan- 
nels, promised to have an effect (and most likely had) which 
startled some feeble minds. Our author did not remain a Jesuit 
long, but he was allowed to retire from his order without scandal. 
He was a man of so much integrity as well as wit, that his 
brethren regretted his loss, as much as the world was pleased with 
the acquisition. 

After having undergone the admiration of the circles in Paris, 
Gresset married, and lived in retirement. He died in 1777, 
beloved by everybody but the critics. Critics were not the good- 
natured people in those times which they have lately become ; 
and they worried him as a matter of course, because he was 
original. He was intimate with Jean Jacques Rousseau. The 
self-tormenting and somewhat affected philosopher came to see 
him in his retreat ; and being interrogated respecting his mis- 
fortunes, said to him, " You have made a parrot speak; but you 
will find it a harder task with a bear." 

Gresset wrote other poems and a comedy, which are admired ; 
but the Parrot is the feather in his cap. It was an addition to the 
stock of originality, and has greater right perhaps than the Lutrin 
to challenge a comparison with the Rape of the Lock. This is 
spoken with deference to better French scholars ; but there is at 
least more of Pope's delicacy and invention in the Ver-Vert than 
in the Lutrin ; and it does not depend so much as the latter upon 
a mimicry of the classics. It is less made up of what preceded it, 

* Sometimes written Vert- Vert (Green-green). 



ver-vert; or, the parrot of the nuns. 245 

I am afraid this is but a bad preface to a prose translation. I 
would willingly have done it in verse, but other things demanded 
my time ; and after wistfully looking at a page or two with which 
I indulged myself, I renounced the temptation. Readers not 
bitten with the love of verse, will hardly conceive how much 
philosophy was requisite to do this : but they may guess, if they 
have a turn for good eating, and give up dining with an epicure. 

I must mention, that a subject of this nature is of necessity 
more piquant in a Catholic country than a Protestant. But the 
loss of poor Ver- Vert's purity of speech comes home to all 
Christendom ; and it is hard if the tender imaginations of the 
fair sex do not sympathize everywhere both with parrot and with 
nuns. When the poem appeared in France, it touched the fibres 
of the whole polite world, male and female. A minister of state 
made the author a present of a coffee- service in porcelain, on 
which was painted, in the most delicate colours, the whole history 
of the " immortal bird." If I had the leisure and the means of 
Mr. Rogers, nothing should hinder me from trying to outdo (in 
one respect) the delicacy of his publications, in versifying a subject 
so worthy of vellum and morocco. The paper should be as soft 
as the novices' lips, the register as rose-coloured ; every canto 
should have vignettes from the hand of Stothard ; and the binding 
should be green and gold, the colours of the hero. 

Alas ! and must all this end in a prose abstract, and an anti- 
climax ! Weep all ye little Loves and Graces, ye 

" Veneres Cupidinesque ! 
Et quantum est hominum venustiorum." 

But first enable us, for our good-will, to relate the story, albeit 
we cannot do it justice." 

* There are two English poetical versions of the Ver- Vert ; one by Dr. 
Geddes, which I have never seen ; the other, by John Gilbert Cooper, 
author of the Song to Winifreda. The latter is written on the false prin- 
ciple of naturalizing French versification ; and it is not immodest in a prose 
translator to say that it failed altogether. The following is a sample of 
the commencement : — 

" At Nevers, but few years ago 

Among the Nuns o' the Visitation, 
There dwelt a Parrot, though a beau, 

For sense of wondrous reputation ; 
Whose virtues and genteel address, 

Whose figure and whose noble soul, 
Would have secured him from distress, 

Could wit and beauty fate control. [Ver- Vert 



246 vbe-yeet; or, the parrot of the nuns. 



CHAPTER I. 






CHARACTER AND MANNERS OF TER-VERT — HIS POPULARITY IN THE 
CONVENT, AND THE LIFE HE LED WITH THE NUNS — TOILETS AND 

LOOKING-GLASSES NOT UNKNOWN AMONG THOSE LADIES FOUR 

CANARY-BIRDS AND TWO CATS DIE OF RAGE AND JEALOUSY. 

At Nevers, in the Convent of the Visitation, lived, not long ago, 
a famous parrot. His talents and good temper, nay, the virtues 
he possessed, besides his more earthly graces, would have ren- 
dered his whole life as happy as a portion of it, if happiness had 
been made for hearts like his. 

Ver-Vert (for such was his name) was brought early from his 
native country ; and while yet in his tender years, and ignorant 
of everything, was shut up in this convent for his good. He was 
a handsome creature, brilliant, spruce, and full of spirits, with all 
the candour and amiableness natural to his time of life ; innocent 
withal as could be : in short, a bird worthy of such a blessed 
cage. His very prattle showed him born for a convent. 

When we say that nuns undertake to look after a thing, we 
say all. No need to enter into the delicacy of their attentions. 
Nobody could rival the affection which was borne our hero by 
every mother in the convent, except the confessor ; and even with 
respect to him, a sincere MS. has left it on record, that in more 
than one heart the bird had the advantage of the holy Father. 
He partook, at any rate, of all the pretty sops and syrups with 
which the dear Father in God (thanks to the kindness of the 
sweet nuns) consoled his reverend stomach. Nuns have leisure : 
they have also loving hearts. Ver-Vert was a legitimate object 
of attachment, and he became the soul of the place. All the 
house loved him, except a few old nuns whom time and the 
toothache rendered jealous surveyors of the young ones. Not 
having arrived at years of discretion, too much judgment was not 
expected of him. He said and did what he pleased, and every- 
thing was found charming. He lightened the labours of the good 
sisters by his engaging ways, — pulling their veils, and pecking 
their stomachers. No party could be pleasant if he was not there 

Ver-Vert (for so the nuns agreed 

To call this noble personage), 
The hopes of an illustrious breed, 

To India owed his parentage" 



ver-vert; or, the parrot of the nuns. 247 

to shine and to sidle about ; to flutter and to whistle, and play 
the nightingale. Sport he did, that is certain ; and yet he had 
all the modesty, all the prudent daring and submission in the 
midst of his pretensions, which became a novice, even in sporting. 
Twenty tongues were incessantly asking him questions, and he 
answered with propriety to every one. It was thus, of old, that 
Caesar dictated to four persons at once in four different styles. 

Our favourite had the whole range of the house. He pre- 
ferred dining in the refectory, where he ate as he pleased. In 
the intervals of the table, being of an indefatigable stomach, he 
amused his palate with pocket-loads of sweetmeats which the nuns 
always carried about for him. Delicate attentions, ingenious and 
preventing cares, were born, they say, among the nuns of the 
Visitation. The happy Ver-Vert had reason to think so. He 
had a better place of it than a parrot at court. He lay, lapped 
up, as it were, in the very glove of contentment. 

At bed-time he repaired to whatever cell he chose, and happy, 
too happy was the blessed sister, whose retreat at the return of 
nightfall it pleased him to honour with his presence. He seldom 
lodged with the old ones. The novices, with their simple beds, 
were more to his taste ; which, you must observe, had always a 
peculiar turn for propriety. Ver-Vert used to take his station on 
the agnus-box,* and remain there till the star of Venus rose in 
the morning. He had then the pleasure of witnessing the toilet 
of the fresh little nun : for between ourselves (and I say it in a 
whisper) nuns have toilets. I have read somewhere, that they 
even like good ones. Plain veils require to be put on properly, 
as well as lace and diamonds. Furthermore, they have their 
fashions and modes. There is an art, a gusto in these things, 
inseparable from their natures. Sackcloth itself may sit well. 
Huckaback may have an air. The swarm of the little loves who 
meddle in all directions, and who know how to whisk through the 
grates of convents, take a pleasure in giving a profane turn to a 
bandeau, — a piquancy to a nun's tucker. In short, before one 
goes to the parlour, it is as well to give a glance or two at the 
looking-glass. But let that rest. I say all in confidence : so 
now to return to our hero. 

In this blissful state of indolence Ver-Vert passed his time 
without a care, — without a moment of ennui, — lord, undisputed, 
of all hearts. For him sister Agatha forgot her sparrows ; for 

* A box containing a religious figure of a Lamb. 



248 ver-vert; or, the parrot of the nuns. 

him, or because of him, four canary-birds died out of rage and 
spite ; — for him, a couple of tom-cats, once in favour, took to 
their cushions, and never afterwards held up their heads. 

Who could have foreboded, in the course of a life so charming, 
that the morals of our hero were taken care of, only to be ruined ! 
that a day should arise, a day full of guilt and astonishment, when 
Yer-Vert, the idol of so many hearts, should be nothing but an 
object of pity and horror ! 

Let us husband our tears as long as possible, for come they 
must : sad fruit of the over-tender care of our dear little sisters ! 



CHAPTER II. 

FURTHER DETAILS RESPECTING THE PIETY AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF 
OUR HERO — SISTER MELANIE IN THE HABIT OF EXHIBITING THEM — 
A VISIT FROM HIM IS REQUESTED BY THE NUNS OF THE VISITATION 
AT NANTES — CONSTERNATION IN THE CONVENT — THE VISIT CON- 
CEDED AGONIES AT HIS DEPARTURE. 

You may guess, that, in a school like this, a bird of our hero's 
parts of speech could want nothing to complete his education. 
Like a nun, he never ceased talking, except at meals ; but at the 
same time, he always spoke like a book. His style was pickled 
and preserved in the very source and sugar of good behaviour. 
He was none of your flashy parrots, puffed up with airs of fashion 
and learned only in vanities. Ver-Vert was a devout fowl ; a 
beautiful soul, led by the hand of innocence. He had no notion 
of evil ; never uttered an improper word ; but then to be even 
with those who knew how to talk, he was deep in canticles, 
Oremuses, and mystical colloquies. His Pax vobiscum was edify- 
ing. His Hail, sister! was not to be lightly thougbt of. He 
knew even a Meditation or so, and some of the delicatest touches 
out of Marie Alacoque* Doubtless he had every help to edifica- 
tion. There were many learned sisters in the convent who knew 
by heart all the Christmas carols, ancient and modern. Formed 
under their auspices, our parrot soon equalled his instructors. 
He acquired even their very tone, giving it all the pious lengthi- 
ness, the holy sighs, and languishing cadences, of the singing of 
the dear sisters, groaning little doves. 

The renown of merit like this was not to be confined to a 
cloister. In all Nevers, from morning till night, nothing was 

* A famous devotee. 



ver-vert; or, the parrot of the nuns. 249 

talked of but the darling scenes exhibited by the parrot of the 
blessed nuns. People came as far as from Moulins to see him. 
Ver-Vert never budged out of the parlour. Sister Melanie, in 
her best stomacher, held him, and made the spectators remark 
his tints, his beauties, his infantine sweetness. The bird sat at 
the receipt of victory. And yet even these attractions were for- 
gotten when he spoke. Polished, rounded, brimful of the pious 
gentilities which the younger aspirants had taught him, our illus- 
trious parrot commenced his recitation. Every instant a new 
charm developed itself; and what -was remarkable, nobody fell 
asleep. His hearers listened ; they hummed, they applauded. 
He, nevertheless, trained to perfection, and convinced of the 
nothingness of glory, always withdrew into the recesses of his 
heart, and triumphed with modesty. Closing his beak, and 
dropping into a low tone of voice, he bowed himself with sanctity, 
and so left his world edified. He uttered nothing under a gen- 
tility or a dulcitude ; that is to say, with the exception of a few 
words of scandal or so, which crept from the convent-grate into 
the parlour. 

Thus lived, in this delectable nest, like a master, a saint, and 
a true sage as he was, Father Ver-Vert, dear to more than one 
Hebe ; fat as a monk, and not less reverend ; handsome as a 
sweetheart ; knowing as an abbe ; always loved, and always 
worthy to be loved ; polished, perfumed, cockered up, the very 
pink of perfection : happy, in short, if he had never travelled. 

But now comes the time of miserable memory, the critical 
minute in which his glory is to be eclipsed. guilt ! shame ! 
cruel recollection ! Fatal journey, why must we see thy calami- 
ties beforehand ? Alas ! a great name is a perilous thing. Your 
retired lot is by much the safest. Let this example, my friends, 
show you, that too many talents, and too flattering a success, 
often bring in their train the ruin of one's virtue. 

The renown of thy brilliant achievements, Ver-Vert, spread 
itself abroad on every side, even as far as Nantes. There, as 
everybody knows, is another meek fold of the reverend Mothers of 
the Visitation, — ladies, who, as elsewhere in this country of ours, 
are by no means the last to know everything. To hear of our 
parrot was to desire to see him ; and desire, at all times and in 
everybody, is a devouring flame. Judge what it must be in a 
nun. 

Behold, then, at one blow, twenty heads turned for a parrot. 
The ladies of Nantes wrote to Nevers, to beg that this bewitching 



250 ver-vert; or, the parrot op the nuns. 

bird might be allowed to come down to the Loire, and pay them 
a visit. The letter is sent off; but when, ah, when will come 
the answer ? In something less than a fortnight. What an 
age ! Letter upon letter is despatched, entreaty on entreaty. 
There is no more sleep in the house. Sister Cecilie will die of it. 

At length the epistle arrives at Nevers. Tremendous event ! 
A chapter is held upon it. Dismay follows the consultation. 
" What ! lose Ver-Vert ! heavens ! What are we to do in 
these desolate holes and corners without the darling bird ! Better 
to die at once ! " Thus spoke one of the younger sisters, whose 
heart, tired of having nothing to do, still lay open to a little 
innocent pleasure. To say the truth, it was no great matter to 
wish to keep a parrot, in a place where no other bird was to be 
had. Nevertheless, the older nuns determined upon letting the 
charmer go ; — for a fortnight. Their prudent heads didn't choose 
to embroil themselves with their sisters of Nantes. 

This bill, on the part of their ladyships, produced great dis- 
order in the commons. What a sacrifice ! Is it in human 
nature to consent to it ? " Is it true ? " quoth sister Seraphine : 
— " What ! live, and Ver-Vert away!" In another quarter of 
the room, thrice did the vestry-nun turn pale ; four times did she 
sigh ; she wept, she groaned, she fainted, she lost her voice. 
The whole place is in mourning. I know not what prophetic 
finger traced the journey in black colours ; but the dreams of the 
night redoubled the horrors of the day. In vain. The fatal 
moment arrives ; everything is ready ; courage must be sum- 
moned to bid adieu. Not a sister but groaned like a turtle ; so 
long was the widowhood she anticipated. How many kisses did 
not Ver-Vert receive on going out ! They retain him : they bathe 
him with tears : his attractions redouble at every step. Never- 
theless, he is at length outside the walls ; he is gone ; and out of 
the monastery, with him, flies love ! 



CHAPTER III. 

LAMENTABLE STATE OF MANNERS IN THE BOAT WHICH CARRIES OUR 

HERO DOWN THE LOIRE HE BECOMES CORRUPTED — HIS BITING 

THE NUN THAT CAME TO MEET HIM — ECSTASY OF THE OTHER NUNS 
ON HEARING OF HIS ARRIVAL. 

The same vagabond of a boat which contained the sacred bird, 
contained also a couple of giggling damsels, three dragoons, a 



ver-vert; or, the parrot of the nuns. 251 

wet-nurse, a monk, and two gallons; pretty society for a young 
thing just out of a monastery ! 

Ver-Vert thought himself in another world. It was no longer 
texts and orisons with which he was treated, but words which he 
never heard before, and those words none of the most Christian. 
The dragoons, a race not eminent for devotion, spoke no language 
but that of the ale-house. All their hymns to beguile the road 
were in honour of Bacchus ; all their moveable feasts consisted 
only in those of the ordinary. The gallons and the three new 
graces kept up a concert in the taste of the allies. The boatmen 
cursed and swore, and made horrible rhymes ; taking care, by a 
masculine articulation, that not a syllable should lose its vigour. 
Ver-Vert, melancholy and frightened, sat dumb in a corner. He 
knew not what to say or think. 

In the course of the voyage, the company resolved to " fetch 
out" our hero. The task fell on Brother Lubin the monk, who, 
in a tone very unlike his profession, put some questions to the 
handsome forlorn. The benign bird answered in his best man- 
ner. He sighed with a formality the most finished, and said in a 
pedantic tone, " Hail, Sister ! " — At this " Hail," you may judge 
whether the hearers shouted with laughter. Every tongue fell 
on poor Father Parrot. 

Our novice bethought within him, that he must have spoken 
amiss. He began to consider, that if he would be well with the 
fair portion of the company, he must adopt the style of their 
friends. Being naturally of a daring soul, and having been 
hitherto well fumed with incense, his modesty was not proof 
against so much contempt. Ver-Vert lost- his patience ; and in 
losing his patience, alas ! poor fellow, he lost his innocence. 
He even began, inwardly, to mutter ungracious curses against the 
good sisters, his instructors, for not having taught him the true 
refinements of the French language, its nerve and its delicacy. 
He accordingly set himself to learn them with all his might ; not 
speaking much, it is true, but not the less inwardly studying for 
all that. In two days (such is the progress of evil in young 
minds) he forgot all that had been taught him, and in less than 
three was as off-hand a swearer as any in the boat. He swore 
worse than an old devil at the bottom of a holy-water box. It 
has been said, that nobody becomes abandoned at once. Ver- 
Vert scorned the saying. He had a contempt for any more novi- 
tiates. He became a blackguard in the twinkling of an eye. In 
short, on one of the boatmen exclaiming, " Go to the devil," Ver- 



252 VER-VERT ; OR, THE PARROT OF THE NUNS. 

Vert echoed the wretch ! The company applauded, and he swore 
again. Nay, he swore other oaths. A new vanity seized him ; 
and degrading his generous organ, he now felt no other ambition 
but that of pleasing the wicked. 

During these melancholy scenes, what were you about, chaste 
nuns of the convent of Nevers ? Doubtless you were putting up 
vows for the safe return of the vilest of ingrates, a vagabond un- 
worthy of your anxiety, who holds his former loves in contempt. 
Anxious affection is in your hearts, melancholy in your dwelling. 
Cease your prayers, dear deluded ones ; dry up your tears. Ver- 
Yert is no longer worthy of you ; he is a rqf, an apostate, a 
common swearer. The winds and the water-nymphs have spoilt 
the fruit of your labours. Genius he may be still ; but what is 
genius without virtue ? 

Meanwhile, the boat was approaching the town of Nantes, 
where the new sisters of the Visitation expected it with impatience. 
The days and nights had never been so long. During all their 
torments, however, they had the image of the coming angel before 
them, — the polished soul, the bird of noble breeding, the tender, 
sincere, and edifying voice — behaviour, sentiments, — distinguished 
merit — oh grief ! what is it all to come to ? 

The boat arrives ; the passengers disembark. A lay- sister of 
the turning-box * was waiting in the dock, where she had been 
over and over again at stated time, ever since the letters were 
despatched. Her looks, darting over the water, seemed to hasten 
the vessel that conveyed our hero. The rascal guessed her 
business at first sight. Her prudish eyes, letting a look out at 
the corner, her great coif, white gloves, dying voice, and little 
pendent cross, were not to be mistaken. Ver-Vert ruffled his 
feathers with disgust. There is reason to believe that he gave 
her internally to the devil. He was now all for the army, and 
could not bear the thought of new ceremonies and litanies. 
However, my gentleman was obliged to submit. The lay- sister 
carried him off in spite of his vociferations. They say, he bit 
her in going ; some say in the neck, others on the arm. I believe 
it is not well known where he bit her ; but the circumstance is of 
no consequence. Off he went. The devotee was soon within 
the convent, and the visitor's arrival was announced. 

Here's a noise ! At the first sound of the news, the bell was 
set ringing. The nuns were at prayers, but up they all jump. 

* A box at the convent-gate, by which things are received. 



ver-vert; or, the parrot of the nuns. 253 

They shriek, they clap their hands, they fly. " 'Tis he, sister ! 
'Tis he ! He is in the great parlour ! " The great parlour is 
filled in a twinkling. Even the old nuns, marching in order, 
forget the weight of their years. The whole house was grown 
young again. It is said to have been on this occasion, that 
Mother Angelica ran for the first time. 



CHAPTER THE LAST. 

ADMIRATION OF THE PARROT'S NEW FRIENDS CONVERTED INTO ASTONISH- 
MENT AND HORROR VER-VERT KEEPS NO MEASURES WITH HIS 

SHOCKING ACQUIREMENTS — THE NUNS FLY FROM HIM IN TERROR, 
AND DETERMINE UPON INSTANTLY SENDING HIM BACK, NOT, HOW- 
EVER, WITHOUT PITY— HIS RETURN, AND ASTONISHMENT OF HIS OLD 

FRIENDS HE IS SENTENCED TO SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, WHICH 

RESTORES HIS VIRTUE — TRANSPORT OF THE NUNS, WHO KILL HIM 
WITH KINDNESS. 

At length the blessed spectacle bursts upon the good sisters. 
They cannot satiate their eyes with admiring : and in truth, the 
rascal was not the less handsome for being less virtuous. His 
military look and petit-maitre airs gave him even a new charm. 
All mouths burst out in his praise ; all at once. He, however, 
does not deign to utter one pious word, but stands rolling his eyes 
like a young Carmelite. Grief the first. There was a scandal 
in this air of effrontery. In the second place, when the Prioress, 
with an august air, and like an inward-hearted creature as she 
was, wished to interchange a few sentiments with the bird, the 
first words my gentleman uttered, — the only answer he con- 
descended to give, and that too with an air of nonchalance, or 
rather contempt, and like an unfeeling villain, was, — " What a 
pack of fools these nuns are ! " 

History says he learned these words on the road. 

At this debut, Sister Augustin, with an air of the greatest 
sweetness, hoping to make their visitor cautious, said to him, 
" For shame, my dear brother." The dear brother, not to be 
corrected, rhymed her a word or two, too audacious to be re- 
peated. 

" Holy Jesus ! " exclaimed the sister ; " he is a sorcerer, my 
dear mother ! — Just Heaven ! what a wretch ! Is this the divine 
parrot ! " 

Yer-Vert, like a reprobate at the gallows, made no other 



254 ver-vert; or, the parrot of the nuns. 

answer than by setting up a dance, and singing, " Here we go 
up, up, up;" which, to improve, he commenced with an "Oh 
d — mme." 

The nuns would have stopped his mouth ; but he was not to 
be hindered. He gave a buffoon imitation of the prattle of the 
young sisters ; and then shutting his beak, and dropping into a 
palsied imbecility, mimicked the nasal drawl of his old enemies, 
the antiques ! 

But it was still worse, when, tired and worn out with the 
stale sentences of his reprovers, Ver-Vert foamed and raged like 
a corsair, thundering out all the terrible w r ords he had learned 
aboard the vessel. Heavens ! how he swore, and w r hat things he 
said ! His dissolute voice knew no bounds. The lower regions 
themselves appeared to open before them. "Words not to be 
thought of danced upon his beak. The young sisters thought^he 
was talking Hebrew. 

"Oh! — blood and 'ouns ! Whew! D — mn ! Here's a 
h-11 of a storm ! " 

At these tremendous utterances, all the place trembled with 
horror. The nuns, without more ado, fled a thousand ways, 
making as many signs of the cross. They thought it was the 
end of the world. Poor Mother Cicely, falling on her nose, was 
the ruin of her last tooth. " Eternal Father ! " exclaimed Sister 
Vivian, opening with difficulty a sepulchral voice; "Lord have 
mercy on us ! who has sent us this antichrist ? Sweet Saviour ! 
What a conscience can it be, which swears in this manner, like 
one of the damned ? Is this the famous wit, the sage Ver-Vert, 
who is so beloved and extolled ? For Heaven's sake, let him 
depart from among us without more ado." — " God of love ! " 
cried Sister Ursula, taking up the lamentation; "what horrors ! 
le this the way they talk among our sisters at Nevers ? This 
their perverse lauguage ! This the manner in which they form 
youth ! What a heretic ! divine wisdom, let us get rid of 
him, or we shall all go to the wicked place together ! " 

In short, Ver-Vert is fairly put in his cage, and sent on his 
travels back again. They pronounce him detestable, abominable, 
a condemned criminal, convicted of having endeavoured to pollute 
the virtue of the holy sisters. All the convent sign his decree of 
banishment, but they shed tears in doing it. It was impossible 
not to pity a reprobate in the flower of his age, who was unfor- 
tunate enough to hide such a depraved heart under an exterior so 
beautiful. For his part, Ver-Vert desired nothing better than to 



ver-vert; or, the parrot of the nuns. 255 

be off. He was carried back to the river side in a box, and did 
not bite the lay- sister again. 

But what was the despair, when he returned home, and would 
fain have given his old instructors a like serenade ! Nine vene- 
rable sisters, their eyes in tears, their senses confused with horror, 
their veils two deep, condemned him in full conclave. The 
younger ones, who might have spoken for him, were not allowed 
to be present. One or two were for sending him back to the 
vessel ; but the majority resolved upon keeping and chastising 
him. He was sentenced to two months' abstinence, three of 
imprisonment, and four of silence. No garden, no toilet, no bed- 
room, no little cakes. Nor was this all. The sisters chose for 
his jailer the very Alec to of the convent, a hideous old fury, a 
veiled ape, an octogenary skeleton, a spectacle made on purpose 
for the eye of a penitent. 

In spite of the cares of this inflexible Argus, some amiable 
nuns would often come with their sympathy to relieve the horrors 
of the bird's imprisonment. Sister Rosalie, more than once, 
brought him almonds before breakfast. But what are almonds in 
a room cut off from the rest of the world ! What are sweet- 
meats in captivity but bitter herbs ? 

Covered with shame and instructed by misfortune, or weary of 
the eternal old hag his companion, our hero at last found himself 
contrite. He forgot the dragoons and the monk, and once more 
in unison with the holy sisters both in matter and manner, became 
more devout than a canon. When they were sure of his con- 
version, the divan reassembled, and agreed to shorten the term of 
his penitence. Judge if the day of his deliverance was a day of 
joy ! All his future moments, consecrated to gratitude, were to 
be spun by the hands of love and security. faithless pleasure ! 
vain expectation of mortal delight ! All the dormitories were 
dressed with flowers. Exquisite coffee, songs, lively exercise, an 
amiable tumult of pleasure, a plenary indulgence of liberty, all 
breathed of love and delight ; nothing announced the coming 
adversity. But, indiscreet liberality ! fatal overflowingness 
of the hearts of nuns ! Passing too quickly from abstinence to 
abundance, from the hard bosom of misfortune to whole seas of 
sweetness, saturated with sugar and set on fire with liqueurs, 
Ver-Vert fell one day on a box of sweetmeats, and lay on his 
deathbed. His roses were all changed to cypress. In vain the 
sisters endeavoured to recall his fleeting spirit. The sweet excess 
had hastened his destiny, and the fortunate victim of love expired 



256 VER-VERT ; OK, THE PARROT OF THE NUNS. 

in the bosom of pleasure. His last words were much admired, 
but history has not recorded them. Yenus herself, closing his 
eyelids, took him with her into the little Elysium described by the 
lover of Corinna, where Ver-Vert assumed his station among the 
heroes of the parrot race, close to the one that was the subject of 
the poet's elegy.* 

To describe how his death was lamented, is impossible. The 
present history was taken from one of the circulars composed by 
the nuns on the occasion. His portrait was painted after nature. 
More than one hand gave him a new life in colours and em- 
broidery ; and Grief, taking up the stitches in her turn, drew his 
effigies in the midst of a border of tears of white silk. All the 
funeral honours were paid him, which Helicon is accustomed to 
pay to illustrious birds. His mausoleum was built at the foot of 
a myrtle ; and on a piece of porphyry environed with flowers, the 
tender Artemisias placed the following epitaph, inscribed in letters 
of gold : — 

" O ye who come to tattle in this wood, 
Unknown to us, the graver sisterhood, 
Hold for one moment (if ye can) your tongues, 
Ye novices, and hear how fortune wrongs. 
Hush : or, if hushing be too hard a task, 
Hear but one little speech ; 'tis all we ask — 
One word will pierce ye with a thousand darts : — 
Here lies Ver-Vert, and with him lie all hearts." 

They say, nevertheless, that the shade of the bird is not in 
the tomb. The immortal parrot, according to good authority, 
survives in the nuns themselves ; and is destined, through all 
ages, to transfer, from sister to sister, his soul and his tattle. 

* See Ovid, Liber Amorum, book ii. Elegy 6. 



( 257 ) 



SPECIMENS OF BEITISH POETESSES, 
No. I. 

PAUCITY OF COLLECTIONS OF OUR FEMALE POETRY — SPECIMENS OF ANNE 
BULLEN, QUEEN ELIZABETH, LADY ELIZABETH CAREW, LADY MARY 
WROTH, KATHARINE PHILIPS, THE DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE, ANNE 
KILLIGREW, THE MARCHIONESS OF WHARTON, MRS. TAYLOR, APHRA 
BEHN, AND THE COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA. 

About a hundred years ago, a collection of the poetry of our fair 
countrywomen was made under the title of Poems by Eminent 
Ladies; and twenty years ago, a second appeared, under the title 
at the head of this paper. These, we believe, are the only two 
publications of the kind ever known in England ; a circumstance 
hardly to the credit of the public, when it is considered what stuff 
it has put up with in collections of British Poets, and how far 
superior such verse-writers as Lady Winchelsea, Mrs. Barbaulcl, 
and Charlotte Smith were to the Sprats, and Halifaxes, and 
Stepneys, and Wattses that were re-edited by Chalmers, Ander- 
son, and Dr. Johnson ; to say nothing of the women of genius 
that have since appeared. The French and Italians have behaved 
with more respect to their Deshoulieres and Colonnas. It is not 
pretended (with the exception of w r hat is reported of Comma, and 
what really appears to have been the case with Sappho), that 
women have ever written poetry equal to that of men, any more 
than they have been their equals in painting and music. Content 
with conquering them in other respects, with furnishing them the 
most charming of their inspirations, and dividing with them the 
sweet praise of singing, they have left to the more practical sex 
the glories of pen and pencil. They have been the muses who 
set the poets writing ; the goddesses to whom their altars flamed. 
When they did write, they condescended, in return, to put on the 
earthly feminine likeness of some favourite of the other sex. 
Lady Winchelsea formed herself on Cowley and Dryclen ; Yittoria 
Colonna, on Petrarch and Michael Angelo. Sappho is the ex- 
ception that proves the rule (if she was an exception). Even 
Miss Barrett, whom we take to be the most imaginative poetess 

17 



258 SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 

that has appeared in England, perhaps .in Europe, and who will 
attain to great eminence if the fineness of her vein can but out- 
grow a certain morbidity, reminds her readers of the peculiarities 
of contemporary genius. She is like an ultra- sensitive sister of 
Alfred Tennyson. We are the more desirous to mention the 
name of this lady, as the following remarks on the poetesses were 
made before she was known. Its omission, together with that of 
the names of Mrs. Howitt, Mrs. Norton, Lady Dufferin, and other 
charming people, of whom we then knew as little, might other- 
wise have been thought unjust by the reader, however unimportant 
to themselves. 

Mr. Dyce's collection is the one from which our extracts are 
chiefly made. The other commences no earlier than the time of 
Pope and Swift. Mr. Dyce begins, as he ought to do, with the 
ancientest poetical lady he can find, which is the famous Abbess, 
Juliana Berners, who leads the fair train in a manner singularly 
masculine and discordant, blowing a horn, instead of playing on a 
lute ; for the reverend dame was a hunting parson in petticoats. 
She is the author of three tracts, well known to antiquaries, on 
Hawking, Hunting, and Armory (heraldry) ; and her verses, as 
might be expected, are more curious than bewitching. Next to 
her comes poor Anne Bullen, some verses attributed to whom are 
very touching, especially the second and last stanzas, and the 
burden : — 

* Oh death ! rocke me on slepe, 
Bring me on quiet reste ; 
Let passe my verye guiltless goste 
Out of my careful brest. 
Toll on the passing-bell, 
Ring out the doleful knell, 
Let the sound my deth tell, 

For I must dye ; 

There is no remedy ; 

For now I dye. 

" Farewell, my pleasures past, 
Wellcum, my present payne ; 
I feel my torments so increse 
That lyfe cannot remayne. 
Cease now the passing-bell, 
Kong is m\ doleful knell, 
For the s>ound my dethe doth tell, 

Doth doth draw nve ; 
Sound my end dolefully, 
For now I dye." 

But our attention is drawn off by the stately bluutness of Queen 



SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 259 

Elizabeth, who writes in the same high style that she acted, and 
seems ready to knock us on the head if we do not admire ; which, 
luckily, we do. The conclusion of her verses on Mary Queen of 
Scots (whom Mr. Dyce has well designated as " that lovely, 
unfortunate, but surely not guiltless woman ") are very charac- 
teristic : — 

" JSTo foreign banish'd wight 
Shall anchor in this port ; 
Our realm it brooks no stranger's force ; 

Let them elsewhere resort. 
Our rusty sword with rest 

Shall first his edge employ, 
And poll their tops that seek 

Such change, and gape for joy." 

A politician thoughtlessly gaping for joy, and' having his head 
shaved off like a turnip by the sword of the Maiden Queen, 
presents an example considerably to be eschewed. Hear, how- 
ever, the same woman in love ; — 

" I grieve, and dare not show my discontent ; 

I love, and yet am forc'd to seem to hate ; 
I do, yet dare not say, I ever meant ; 

I seem stark mute, yet inwardly do prate : 
I am, and not ; I freeze, and yet am burn'd, 
Since from myself my other self I turn'd. 

" My care is like my shadow in the sun, 

Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it ; 

Stands and lies by me ; does what I have done ; 
This too familiar care does make me rue it ; 

No means I find to rid him from my breast, 

Till by the end of things it be supprest. 

" Some gentler passions slide into my mind, 
For I am soft and made of melting snow ; 
Or be more cruel, Love, and so be kind ; 

Let me or float or sink, be high or low : 
Or let me live with some more sweet content, 
Or die, and so forget what love e'er meant." 

Signed " Finis. Eliza. Regina, upon Moun . . . .'s departure," Ashmol. 
Mus. MSS. 6969. (781) p. 142. 

Moun .... is probably Blount, Lord "Mountjoy," of whose 
family was the late Earl of BlessiDgton. Elizabeth pinched his 
cheek when he first knelt to her at court, and made him blush. 

Lady Elizabeth Caeew, " who is understood to be the 
authoress of The Tragedy of Mariam, the fair Queen of Jewry, 
written by that learned, virtuous, and truly noble lady, JE,C. 



260 SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 

1613," was truly noble indeed, if she wrote the following stanzas 
in one of the choruses of that work : — 

" We say our hearts are great, and cannot yield ; 
Because they cannot yield it proves them poor ; 
Great hearts are task'd beyond their pow'r but seld ; 

The weakest lion will the loudest roar. 
Truth's school for certain doth this same allow, — 
High-heartedness doth sometimes teach to bow. 

" A noble heart doth teach a virtuous scorn ; 

To scorn to owe a duty over long ; 
To scorn to be for benefits forborne ; 

To scorn to lie ; to scorn to do a wrong ; 
To scorn to bear an injury in mind ; 
To scorn a free-born heart slave-like to bind." 

Lady Mary Wroth, a Sidney, niece of Sir Philip, has the 
following beautiful passages in a song with a pretty burden to 
it:— 

" Love in chaos did appear 
When nothing was, yet he seem'd clear ; 
Nor when light could be descried, 
To his crown a light was tied. 
Who can blame me ? 

" Could I my past time begin 
I would not commit such sin 
To live an hour and not to love, 
Since Love makes us perfect prove. 
Who can blame me? 

If the reader wishes to know what sort of a thing the shadow 
of an angel is, he cannot learn it better than from the verses of 
an anonymous Authoress to her Husband, published in the year 
1652. She bids him not to wear mourning for her, not even a 
black ring : — 

" But this bright diamond let it be 

Worn in remembrance of me, 

And when it sparkles in your eye t 

Think 9 t is my shadow passeth by : 

For why ? More bright you shall me see, 

Than that, or any gem can be." 

Some of the verses of Katherine Philips, who was praised by 
the poets of her time under the title of " the matchless Orinda," 
and who called her husband, a plain country gentleman, " Antenor," 
have an easy though antithetical style, like the lighter ones of 
Cowley, or the verses of Sheffield and his French contemporaries. 



SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 261 

One might suppose the following to have been written in order to 
assist the addresses of some young courtier : — 

TO LADY ELIZABETH BOYLE, SINGING A SONG OF WHICH ORINDA WAS 
THE AUTHOR. 

" Subduing fair ! what will you win, 
To use a needless dart ? 
Why then so many to take in 
One undefended heart ? 

" I came exposed to all your charms, 
'Gainst which, the first half hour, 
I had no will to take up arms, 
And in the next, no power. 

" How can you choose but win the day ? 
Who can resist the siege ? 
Who in one action know the way 
To vanquish and oblige ? " 

And so on, for four more stanzas. " To vanquish and obleege" 
has a very dandy tone.* 

The following are in the same epigrammatical taste, and very 
pleasing. They are part of a poem On a Country Life : — 

" Then welcome, dearest solitude, 
My great felicity ; 
Though some are pleased to call thee rude, 
Thou art not so, but we. 
" Opinion is the rate of things ; 

From hence our peace doth flow ; 
I have a better fate than kings, 
Because I think it so. 
" Silence and innocence are safe ;— 
A heart that's nobly true 
At all these little arts can laugh, 
That do the world subdue." 

Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, with all the fantastic 
state she took upon her, and other absurdities arising from her 
want of judgment, was a woman of genius, and could show a 
great deal of good sense, where other people were concerned. 

* Chesterfield, in this word, is for using the English pronunciation of 
the letter i ; which we believe is now the general custom. The late Mr. 
Kemble, in the course of an affable conversation with which George IV. 
indulged him, when Prince of Wales, is said to have begged as a favour 
that his illustrious interlocutor " would be pleased to extend his royal jaws, 
and say oblige, instead of obleege." Nevertheless, all authority is in favour 
of the latter pronunciation — French, Italian, and Latin. But it is a pity 
to lose the noble sound of our i, one of the finest in the language. 



262 SPECIMENS OF BBITISH POETESSES* 

The following apostrophe on The Theme of Love has something 
in it extremely agreeable, between gaiety and gravity. 

" O Love, how thou art tired out with rhyme ! 
Thou art a tree whereon all poets climb ; 
And from thy branches every one takes some 
Of thy sweet fruit, which Fancy feeds upon." 

Her Grace wrote an Allegro and Penseroso, as well as Milton ; 
and very good lines they contain. Her " Euphrosyne " does not 
mince the matter. She talks like a Nell Gwynne, and looks like 
her too, though all within bounds. 

" Mirth laughing came ; and, running to me, flung 
Her fat white arms about my neck : there hung, 
Embrac'd and kiss'd me oft, and stroked my cheek, 
Saying, she would no other lover seek. 
I'll sing you songs, and please you ev'ry day, 
Invent new sports to pass the time away ; 
I'll keep your heart, and guard it from that thief 
Dull Melancholy, Care, or sadder Grief, 
And make your eyes with Mirth to overflow ; 
With springing blood your cheeks soon fat shall grow ; 
Your leg shall nimble be, your body light, 
And all your spirits like to birds inflight. 
Mirth shall digest your meat, and make you strong, &c. 
But Melancholy ! She will make you lean ; 
Your cheeks shall hollow grow, your jaws be seen. 
She'll make you start at every voice you hear, 
And visions strange shall to your eyes appear. 
Her voice is low, and gives a hollow sound ; 
She hates the light, and is in darkness found ; 
Or sits with blinking lamps, or tapers small, 
Which various shadows make against the wall." 

On the other hand, Melancholy says of Mirth, that she is 
only happy " just at her birth ; " and that she 

" Like weeds doth grow, 
Or such plants as cause madness, reason's foe. 
Her face with laughter crumples on a heap, 
Which makes great wrinkles, and ploughs furrows deep ; 
Her eyes do water, and her chin turns red, 
Her mouth doth gape, teeth-bare, like one that's dead ; 
She fulsome is, and gluts the senses all, 
Offers herself, and comes before a call ;" 

And then, in a finer strain — 

" Her house is built upon the golden sands, 
Yet no foundation has, whereon it stands ; 



SPECIMENS OF BBITISH POETESSES. 263 

A palace 'tis, and of a great resort, 

It makes a noise, and gives a loud report, 

Yet underneath the roof disasters lie, 

Beat down the house, and many MlVd thereby : 

I dwell in groves that gilt are with the sun, 

Stt on the banks by which clear waters run; 

In summers hot, down in a shade I lie ; 

My music is the buzzing of a fly ; 

I walk in meadows, where grows fresh green grass, 

In fields, where corn is high, I often pass ; 

Walk up the hills, where round I prospects see, 

Some brushy woods, and some all champaigns be ; 

Eeturning back, I in fresh pastures go, 

To hear how sheep do bleat, and cows do low ; 

In winter cold, when nipping frosts come on, 

Then I do live in a small house alone ; 

Although 'tis plain, yet cleanly 'tis within, 

Like to a soul that's pure and clean from sin ; 

And there I dwell in quiet and still peace, 

Not rilled with cares how riches to increase ; 

I wish nor seek for vain and fruitless pleasures : 

No riches are, but what the mind intreasures." 

Dryden's young favourite, Anxe Killigeew, who comes 
next in the list (she was a niece of the famous wit), has no verses 
so unequal as these, and perhaps none so strong as some of them ; 
but she is very clever, and promised to do honour to her master. 
She was accused of being helped by him in her writing, and 
repels the charge with spirit and sweetness. The lines " Advanced 
her height," and " Every laurel to her laurel bow'd," will remind 
the reader of her great friend. The concluding couplet is ex- 
cellent. 

" My laurels thus another's brow adom'd, 

My numbers they admir'd, but me they scom'd : 

Another's brow ; — that had so rich a store 

Of sacred wreaths that circled it before ; 

While mine, quite lost (like a small stream that ran 

Into a vast and boundless ocean) 

Was swallowed up with what it joined, and drown'd, 

And that abyss yet no accession found. 

" Orinda {Albion's and her sex's grace) 
Owed not her glory to a beauteous face : 
It was her radiant soul that shone within, 
Which struck a lustre through her outward skin ; 
That did her lips and cheeks with roses dye, 
Advanc'd her height, and sparkled in her eye. 
Nor did her sex at all obstruct her fame, 
But higher 'mong the stars it fix'd her name ; 
What she did write, not only all allowed, 
But ev'ry laurel to her laurel bow'd. 



264 SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 

" The envious age, only to me alone, 
Will not allow what I do write my own ; 
But let them rage, and 'gainst a maid conspire, 
So deathless numbers from my tuneful lyre 
Do ever flow ; so Phoebus, I by thee 
Divinely inspired, and possessed may be. 
I willingly accept Cassandra's fate, 
To speak the truth although belie v'd too late." 

Anne, Marchioness of Whakton, who follows, has an agree- 
able song, worthy of repetition : — 

" How hardly I conceal'd my tears, 
How oft did I complain, 
When many tedious days, my fears 
Told me I lov'd in vain ! 

" But now my joys as wild are grown, 
And hard to be conceal'd ; 
Sorrow may make a silent moan, 
But joy will be reveal'd. 

" I tell it to the bleating flocks, 
To every stream and tree, 
And bless the hollow murmuring rocks 
Eor echoing back to me. 

•* Then you may see with how much joy 
We want, we wish, believe : 
'T is hard such passion to destroy, 
But easy to deceive." 

This lady was daughter of Sir Henry Lee, of Ditchley, ancestor 
of the present Dillon family. She was a cousin of Lord Rochester, 
and wrote an elegy on his death, in which she represents him 
as an angel. We have the pleasure of possessing a copy of 
W T aller's Poems, on the blank leaf of which is written, " Anne 
Wharton, given her by the Authore." Her husband was at that 
time not possessed of his title. 

A " Mrs. Taylor," who appears to have been an acquaintance 
of Aphra Behn, has a song with the following beautiful termina- 
tion. It is upon a rake whose person she admired, and whom, on 
account of his indiscriminate want of feeling, she is handsomely 
resolved not to love. 

" My wearied heart, like Noah's dove, 
In vain may seek for rest ; 
rinding no hope to fix, my love 
Returns into my breast." 

Next comes Aphra herself; and, we must say, affects and 
makes us admire her, beyond what we looked for. Her verses 






SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 265 

are natural and cordial, written in a masculine style, and yet 
womanly withal. If she had given us nothing hut such poetry as 
this, she would have been as much admired, and known among 
us all, to this clay, as she consented to be among the rakes of her 
time. Her comedies, indeed, are alarming, and justly incurred 
the censure of Pope : though it is probable, that a thoughtless, 
good-humour made her pen run over, rather than real licentious- 
ness ; and that, although free enough in her life, she was not so 
" extravagant and erring " as persons with less mind. 

LOVE ARMED. 

Song in Abdelazer ; or, the Moor's Revenge. 

" Love in fantastic triumph sat, 

Whilst bleeding hearts around him flowed, 
For whom fresh pains he did create, 

And strange tyrannic pow'r he shew'd. 
From thy bright eyes he took his fires, 

Which round about in sport he hurCd ; 
But 't was from mine he took desires, 

Enough f undo the amorous world. 

" From me he took his sighs and tears, 
From thee his pride and cruelty ; 
From me his languishment and fears, 
And every killing dart from thee : " 

How musical is that ! 

" Thus thou, and I, the God have arm'd, 
And set him up a deity ; " 

And how fine that ! 

" But my poor heart alone is harm'd, 
Whilst thine the victor is, and free." 

LOVE BEYOND SENSE. 

Song in the Lucky Chance ; or, an Alderman's Bargain. 

" O Love ! that stronger art than wine, 
Pleasing delusion, witchery divine, 
Wont to be prized above all wealth, 
Disease that has more joys than health; 
Tho' we blaspheme thee in our pain, 
And of thy tyranny complain, 
We all are bettered by thy reign. 

" When full brute Appetite is fed, 
And choked the glutton lies, and dead, 



266 SPECIMENS OP BRITISH POETESSES. 

Thou new spirits dost dispense, 
And fin'st the gross delights of sense. 
Virtue's unconquerable aid, 
That against nature can persuade ; 
And makes a roving mind retire 
Within the bounds of just desire ; 
Cheerer of age, youth's kind unrest, 
And half the heaven of the blest." 

This " Half the heaven of the blest," is a beautiful variation on a 
beautiful couplet in Waller : — 

" What know we of the blest above, 
But that they sing, and that they love ? " 

LOVE AND HYMEN. 

" In vain does Hymen, with religious vows, 

Oblige his slaves to wear his chains with ease, 
A privilege alone that Love allows ; 

? T is Love alone can make our fetters please. 
The angry tyrant lays his yoke on all, 

Yet in his fiercest rage is charming still : 
Officious Hymen comes whene'er we call, 

But haughty Love comes only when he will" 

Aphra Behn is said to have been in love with Creech. It 
should be borne in mind by those who give an estimate of her 
character, that she passed her childhood among the planters of 
Surinam ; no very good school for restraining or refining a lively 
temperament. Her relations are said to have been careful of 
her ; but they died there, and she returned to England her own 
mistress. 

We now come to one of the numerous loves we possess among 
our grandmothers of old, — or rather not numerous, but select and 
such as keep fresh with us for ever, like the miniature of his 
ancestress, whom the Sultan took for a living beauty. This is 
Anne, Countess of Winchelsea (now written Winchilsea), 
daughter of Sir William Kingsmill, of Sidmonton, in the county 
of Southampton. " It is remarkable," says Mr. Wordsworth, as 
quoted by Mr. Dyce, " that excepting a passage or two in the 
Windsor Forest of Pope, and some delightful pictures in the 
poems of Lady Winchelsea, the poetry of the period intervening 
between the publication of the Paradise Lost and the Seasons, 
does not contain a single new image of external nature." — This 
is a mistake ; for Allan Ramsay preceded Thomson : but some 
of Lady Winchelsea's " delightful pictures " are indeed very 



SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 267 

fresh and natural. In the poem entitled A Nocturnal Reverie, 

she thus speaks of a summer night — 

" When freshen' d grass now bears itself upright, 
And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite, 
Whence springs the woodbind, and the bramble-rose, 
And where the sleepy cowslip shelter'd grows ; 
Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes, 
Yet chequers still with red the dusky brakes ; 
When scattered glowworms, but in twilight fine, 
Shew trivial beauties watch their hour to shine ; 
Whilst Salisb'ry* stands the test of every light, 
In perfect charms, and perfect virtue bright : 
When odours which declin'd repelling day, 
Thro' temperate air uninterrupted stray ; 
When darken'd groves their softest shadows wear, 
And falling waters we distinctly hear ; 
When thro' the gloom more venerable shows 
Some ancient fabric, awful in repose ; 
While sun-burnt hills their swarthy looks conceal, 
And swelling hay-cocks thicken up the vale; 
When the loosed horse now, as his pasture leads, 
Comes slowly grazing thro' the adjoining meads, 
Whose stealing pace, and lengthened shade we fear, 
Till tor n-up forage in his teeth ice hear ; 
When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food, 
And unmolested kine rechew the cud ; 
When curlews cry beneath the village walls, 
And to her straggling brood the partridge calls ; 
Their short-liv'd jubilee the creatures keep, 
Which but endures whilst tyrant man does sleep ; 
When a sedate content the spirit feels, 
And no fierce light disturbs, whilst it reveals ; 
But silent musings urge the mind to seek 
Something too high for syllables to speak ; 
Till the free soul to a composedness charm'd, 
Finding the elements of rage disarm'd, 
O'er all below a solemn quiet grown, 
Joys in th' inferior world, and thinks it like her own ; 
In such a night let me abroad remain, 
Till morning breaks, and alVs confus'd again ; 
Our cares, our toils, our clamours are renew'd, 
Or pleasures, seldom reach'd, again pursu'd." 

Mr. Dyce has not omitted the celebrated poem of the 
" Spleen" which attracted considerable attention in its day. 
It still deserves a place on every toilet, male and female. 

* Frances Bennett, daughter of a gentleman in Buckinghamshire, and 
wife to James, fourth Earl of Salisbury. 



268 SPECIMENS OP BEITISH POETESSES. 

" What art thou, Spleen, which everything dost ape ? 
Thou Proteus to abus'd mankind, 
Who never yet thy real cause could find, 
Or fix them to remain in one continued shape. 
***** 

In the imperious wife thou vapours * art, 

Which from o'er-heated passions rise 

In clouds to the attractive brain ; 

Until descending thence again 

Through the o'er-cast and showering eyes 

Upon her husband's softened heart, 

He the disputed point must yield, — 

Something resign of the contested field — 

Till lordly man, born to imperial sway, 

Compounds for peace to make that right away, 

And woman, arai'd with spleen, does servilely obey. 

" Patron thou art to every gross abuse, 
The sullen husband's feign'd excuse, 
When the ill-humour with his wife he spends, 
And bears recruited wit and spirits to his friends. 
The son of Bacchus pleads thy pow'r, 
As to the glass he still repairs ; 
Pretends but to remove thy cares, 
Snatch from thy shade one gay and smiling hour, 
And drown thy kingdom in a purple shower." 

That is a fine couplet. Dryden, whom it is very like, would 
not have wished it better. 

" When the coquette, whom every fool admires, 
Would in variety be fair, 

And changing hastily the scene 

From light, impertinent, and vain, 
Assumes a soft and melancholy air, 
And of her eyes rebates the wandering fires : 
The careless posture and the head reclin'd, 
The thoughtful and composed face, 
Proclaiming the withdrawn, the absent mind, 
Allows the fop more liberty to gaze, 
Who gently for the tender cause inquires : — 
The cause indeed is a defect of sense, 
Yet is the spleen alleged, and still the dull pretence." 

Lady Winchelsea is mentioned by Gay as one of the con- 
gratulators of Pope, when his Homer was finished : — 

" And Winchelsea, still meditating song." 



* At present called " nerves," or "headache. 



SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 269 



No. II. 

MISS VANHOMRIGH, LADY RUSSELL, MRS. MANLY, MRS. BRERETON, MRS. 
GREVILLE, LADY HENRIETTA O'NEIL, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE, 
MISS CARTER, CHARLOTTE SMITH, MISS SEWARD, AND MRS. TIGHE. 

The verses of poor Miss Vanhomrigh, who was in love with 
Swift, are not very good ; but they serve to show the truth of her 
passion, which was that of an inexperienced girl of eighteen for 
a wit of forty-four. Swift had conversation enough to make a 
dozen sprightly young gentlemen ; and, besides his wit and his 
admiration of her, she loved him for what she thought his love of 
truth. In her favour, also, he appears to have laid aside his 
brusqiierie and fits of ill temper, till he found the matter too 
serious for his convenience. 

" Still listening to his tuneful tongue, 
The truths which angels might have sung 
Divine imprest their gentle sway, 
And sweetly stole my soul away. 
My guide, instructor, lover, friend, 
Dear names in one idea blend ; 
Oh ! still conjoin'd your incense rise, 
And waft sweet odours to the skies." 

Swift, who was already engaged, and with a woman too whom 
he loved, should have told her so. She discovered it, and died 
in a fit of indignation and despair. The volume, a little farther, 
contains some verses of the other lady (Miss Johnson) On 
Jealousy, — probably occasioned by the rival who was jealous of 
her. Poor Stella ! She died also, after a longer, a closer, and 
more awful experience of Swift's extraordinary conduct ; which, 
to this day, remains a mystery. 

The Lady Russell, who wrote the verses at p. 149, to the 
memory of her husbaod, was most probably Elizabeth, one of the 
learned daughters of Sir Anthony Cook, and widow of John, Lord 
Russell, who was called up to the House of Lords in the lifetime 
of his father, Francis, Earl of Bedford, who died in 1585. The 
singular applicability of the last line to the mourning widowhood 
of a subsequent and more famous Lady Russell, has led commen- 
tators to mistake one husband for another. The concluding 
couplet is remarkable for showing the effect to which real feeling 
turns the baldest common-places. Not that the words just 



270 SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 

alluded to are common-place. They are the quintessence of 
pathos — 

" Right noble twice, by virtue and by birth, 
Of Heaven lov'd, and honour'd on the earth, 
His country's hope, his kindred's chief delight, 
My husband dear, more than this world his light. 
Death hath me reft. — But I from death will take 
His memory, to whom this tomb I make. 
John was his name (ah was ! wretch must I say) 
Lord Russell once, now my tear-thirsty clay." 

Gay Mrs. Centlivee follows Lady Russell, like a sprightly 
chambermaid after a gentlewoman. She is all for " the 
soldiers ; " and talks of the pleasure of surrendering, like a 
hungry citadel. The specimen consists of her prologue to the 
Bold Stroke for a Wife. It is very good of its kind ; gallant, 
and to the purpose ; with that sort of air about it, as if it had 
been spoken by Madame Vestris, or by the fair authoress herself, 
in regimentals. But partial extracts would be awkward ; and we 
have not place for more. 

Mrs. De La Riviere Manly, who wrote the Atalantis, and 
alternately "loved" and lampooned Sir Richard Steele (which 
was not so generous of her as her surrendering herself to the law 
to save her printer), has two copies of verses, in which we may 
observe the usual tendency of female writers to break through 
conventional common-places with some touches of nature. The 
least of them have an instinct of this sort, which does them 
honour, and sets them above the same class of writers in the 
other sex. The mixture, however, sometimes has a ludicrous 

effect. Mrs. Manly, panegyrizing a certain "J. M e, Esq., 

of Worcester College," begins with this fervid and conversational 
apostrophe : — 

" Oxford, — for all thy fops and smarts, 
Let this prodigious youth atone ; 
While others frisk and dress at hearts, 
He makes thy better part his own." 

The concluding stanza is better, and indeed contains a noble 
image. Others, she says, advance in their knowledge by slow 
degrees, — 

" But his vast mind, completely form'd, 
Was thoroughly finish'd when begun ; 
So all at once the world teas warm'd 
On the great birth-day of the sun" 



SPECIMENS OF BEITISH POETESSES. 271 

Mrs. Manly is supposed to have been the Sappho of the 
Tatler. She wrote political papers in the Examiner of that day, 
and courageously shared in its responsibilities to the law. 

A Mrs. Brereton, daughter of a Welsh gentleman, was 
author, it seems, of a well-known epigram on Beau Nash's 
picture " at full length," between the busts of Newton and Pope. 
It forms the conclusion of a poem of six stanzas, the whole of 
which are very properly given by Mr. Dyce, but from which 
it has usually been separated, and with some difference in the 
reading. The stanza is as follows : 

" The picture, plac'd the busts between, 
Adds to the thought much strength ; 
Wisdom and Wit are little seen, 
But Folly's at full length." 

Mrs. Pilkington, well known for departures, not in the best 
taste, from the ordinary modes of her sex, tells us that — 

" Lying is an occupation 
Used by all who mean to rise." 

Poor soul ! We fear she practised a good deal of it to little 
purpose. She had a foolish husband, and was beset by very 
untoward circumstances, to which she fell a worse prey than she 
would have us think. But the weakest of women are so unequally 
treated by the existing modes of society, that we hate to think 
anything unhandsome of them. 

Not so of my Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was at once 
so clever, so bold, so well off, and so full of sense of every sort but 
the sense of delicacy, that she provokes us to speak as plainly as 
herself. But we have said enough of her ladyship in another place. 

The verses of Mrs. Sheridan, mother of the famous Sheridan, 
and author of Sidney Bidulph, are not so good as her novels. 
Miss Jones has a compliment to Pope, which Pope himself may 
have admired for its own sake : — 

" Alas ! I'd live unknown, unenvied too ; 
'Tis more than Pope, with all his wit, can do." 

" Miss Jones," says a note in Boswell, quoted by Mr. Dyce, 
" lived at Oxford, and was often of our parties. She was a very 
ingenious poetess, and published a volume of poems ; and on the 
whole, was a most sensible, agreeable, and amiable woman. She 
was sister to the Rev. River Jones, Chanter of Christ Church 
Cathedral, at Oxford, and Johnson used to call her the Chantress. 



272 SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 

I have heard him often address her in this passage from II 
Penseroso, i Thee, chant r ess, oft the woods among, I woo,' &c. 

This puts in a pleasant light hoth Johnson and the poetess ; 
but in the earlier collection of ladies' verses, alluded to at the 
commencement of this paper, there are poems attributed to her of 
astounding coarseness. 

Frances Brooke, author of Rosina, of Lady Julia Mande- 
mile, &c, was a better poetess in her prose than her verse. Her 
Ode to Health, given by Mr. Dyce, is not much. "We should 
have preferred a song out of Rosina. But we will venture to 
affirm, that she must have written a capital love-letter. These 
clergymen's daughters (her father was a Rev. Mr. Moore) contrive 
somehow to have a double zest in those matters. Mrs. Brooke 
had once a public dispute with Garrick, in which she had the rare 
and delightful candour to confess herself in the wrong. 

In the well-known Prayer for Indifference, by Mrs. Greville, 
is a stanza, which has the point of an epigram with all the softness 
of a gentle truth : — 

" Nor peace, nor ease, the heart can know, 
That, like the needle true, 
Turns at the touch of joy or woe, 
But turning, trembles too." 

There is a good deal about Mrs. Greville in the Memoirs of 
Madame D'Arblay. She was married to a man of fortune, and 
of much intellectual pretension, but not happily. 

Two poems by Lady Henrietta O'Neil, daughter of Viscount 
Dungarvon, and wife of O'Neil, of Slane's Castle, are taken out 
of her friend Mrs. Charlotte Smith's novel of Desmond, — a 
work, by the way, from which Sir Walter Scott borrowed the 
foundation of his character of Waverley, and the name besides. 
In a novel by the same lady, we forget which, is the first sketch 
of the sea- side incident in the Antiquary, where the hero saves 
the life of Miss Wardour. Lady Henrietta's verses do her credit, 
but imply a good deal of suffering. One, To the Poppy, begins 
with the following melodious piece of melancholy : — 

" Not for the promise of the laboured field, 
Not for the good the yellow harvests yield, 

I bend at Ceres' shrine ; 
For dull to humid eyes appear 
The golden glories of the year : 

Alas ! a melancholy worship's mine : 

" I hail the Goddess for her scarlet flower," &c. 



SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 273 

In other words, the flourishing lady of quality took opium ; 
which, we suspect, was the case with her poorer friend. We 
believe the world would be astonished, if they knew the names of 
all the people of genius, and of all the rich people, as well as 
poor, who have had recourse to the same consolatory drug. 
Thousands take it, of whose practice the world have no suspicion ; 
and yet many of those persons, able to endure, perhaps, on that 
very account, what requires all the patience of those who 
abstain from it, have quarrelled with such writers as the fair 
novelist, for trying to amend the evils which tempted them to 
its use. 

Geokgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who was " made," ac- 
cording to Gibbon, "for something better than a Duchess," is 
- justly celebrated for her poem on the Passage of Mount St. 
Gothard, which awakened the enthusiasm of Coleridge. There 
are fine lines in it, and a vital liberality of sentiment. The 
writer seems to breathe out her fervent words like a young Muse, 
her lips glowing with health and the morning dew. 

" Yet let not these rude paths be coldly traced, 
Let not these wilds with listless steps be trod ; 
Here fragrance scorns not to perfume the waste. 
Here charity uplifts the mind to God." 

At stanza twenty it is said with beautiful truth and fresh- 
ness — 

" The torrent pours, and breathes its glittering spray." 

Stanza twenty-four was the one that excited the raptures of 
Coleridge — 

" And hail the chapel ! hail the platform wild ! 
Where Tell directed the avenging dart, 
With well-strung arm that first preserv'd his child, 
Then wing'd the arrow to the tyrant's heart." 

" Oh, lady ! " cried the poet, on hearing this animated apo- 
strophe : — 

" Oh, lady ! nurs'd in pomp and pleasure, 
Where learnt you that heroic measure ? " 

This is the burden of an ode addressed to her by Coleridge. 
The Duchess of Devonshire, mother of the present Duke, who 
has proved himself a worthy son by his love of the beauties of 
nature and his sympathies with his fellow- creatures, may well 
have been a glorious being to look at, writing such verses as 
those, and being handsome besides. It was she of whom it is 

18 



274 SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 






said that a man at an election once exclaimed, astonished at her 
loveliness, " Well, if I were God Almighty, I'd make her Queen 
of Heaven. " 

Exit the Duchess ; and enter, in this curious alternation of 
grave and gay, the staid solemnity of Miss Carter, a Stoic 
philosopher, who died at the age of eighty-nine. The volume 
contains her Ode to Wisdom, somewhat bitter against 

" The coxcomb sneer, the stupid lie 
Of ignorance and spite ; " 

and some Lines to a Gentleman on his intending to cut down a 
Grove, which are pleasanter. A Hamadryad who is made to 
remonstrate on the occasion, says — . 

" Reflect, before the fatal axe 

My threatened doom has wrought ; 
Nor sacrifice to sensual taste 
The nobler growth of thought " 

This line, by which thoughts are made to grow in the mind 
like a solemn grove of trees, is very striking. And the next 
stanza is good : — 

" Not all the glowing fruits that blush 
On India's sunny coast, 
Can recompense thee for the worth 
Of one idea lost." 

Miss Carter translated Epictetus ; and was much, and we 
believe deservedly, admired for the soundness of her acquirements. 
We were startled at reading somewhere the other day that, in 
her youth, she had not only the wisdom of a Pallas, but the look 
of a Hebe. Healthy no doubt she was, and possessed of a fine 
constitution. She was probably also handsome ; but Hebe and a 
hook nose are in our minds impossible associations. 

Charlotte Smith has been mentioned before. Some of her 
novels will last, and her sonnets with them, each perhaps aided 
by the other. There is nothing great in her ; but she is natural 
and touching, and has hit, in the music of her sorrows, upon 
some of those chords which have been awakened equally, though 
not so well, in all human bosoms : — 

" SONNET WRITTEN AT THE CLOSE OF SPRING. 

" The garlands fade that Spring so lately wove, 

Each simple flower, which she had nurs'd in dew, 
Anemones that spangled every grove, 

The primrose wan, and harebell mildly blue. 



SPECIMENS Of BHIT1SH POETESSES* 275 

No more shall violets linger in the dell, 

Or purple orchis variegate the plain, 
Till Spring again shall call forth every bell, 

And dress with humid hands her wreaths again. 
Ah, poor humanity ! so frail, so fair, 

Are the fond visions of thy early day, 
Till tyrant passion, and corrosive care, 

Bid* all thy fairy colours fade away ! 
Another May new buds and flowers shall bring ; 
Ah ! ivhy has happiness no second Spring ? " 

" SONNET TO THE MOON. 

" Queen of the silver bow ! by thy pale beam, 

Alone and pensive, I delight to stray, 
And watch thy shadow trembling in the stream, 

Or mark the floating clouds that cross thy way. 
And while I gaze, thy mild and placid light 

Sheds a soft calm upon my troubled breast ; 
And oft I think, fair planet of the night, 

That in thy orb the wretched may have rest ; 
The sufferers of the earth perhaps may go, 

Released by death, to thy benignant sphere, 
And the sad children of despair and woe 

Forget in thee their cup of sorrow here. 
Oh ! that I soon may reach thy world serene, 
Poor wearied pilgrim in this toiling scene I" 

"soxxet. 

11 Sighing, I see yon little troop at play, 

By sorrow yet untouched, unhurt by care, - 

While free and sportive they enjoy to-day, 
* Content and careless of to-morrow's fare.' 

O happy age ! when hope's unclouded ray 

Lights their green path, and prompts their simple mirth, 

Ere yet they feel the thorns that lurking lay 
To wound the wretched pilgrims of the earth, 
Making them rue the hour that gave them birth, 
And threw them on a world so full of pain, 

Where prosperous folly treads on patient worth, 
And to deaf pride misfortune pleads in vain ! 

Ah ! for their future fate how many fears 

Oppress my heart, and fill mine eyes with tears ! " 

Mrs. Smith's love of botany, as Mr. Dyce observes, " has 
led her, in several of her pieces, to paint a variety of flowers 
with a minuteness and delicacy rarely equalled." This is very 
true. No young lady, fond of books and flowers, would be with- 
out Charlotte Smith's poems, if once acquainted with them. The 



276 SPECIMENS OF BBITlSH POETESSES. 

following couplet, from the piece entitled Saint Monica, shows 
her tendency to this agreeable miniature-painting : — 

" From the mapp'd lichen, to the plumed weed ; 
Erom thready mosses to the veined flow'r." 

Mrs. Smith suffered bitterly from the failure of her husband's 
mercantile speculations, and the consequent troubles they both 
incurred from the law ; which, according to her representations, 
were aggravated in a scandalous manner by guardians and 
executors. Lawyers cut a remarkable figure in her novels ; 
and her complaints upon these her domestic grievances overflow, 
in a singular, though not unpardonable or unmoving manner, in 
her prefaces. To one of the later editions of her poems, published 
when she was alive, is prefixed a portrait of her, under which, 
with a pretty feminine pathos, which a generous reader would be 
loth to call vanity, she has quoted the following lines from 
Shakspeare : — 

" Oh, Grief has chang'd me since you saw me last ; 
And heavy hours, with Time's deforming hand, 
Have written strange defeatures on my face." 

Miss Seward is affected and superfluous ; but now and then 
she writes a good line ; for example : — 

k< And sultry silence brooded o'er the hills." 

And she can paint a natural picture. We can testify to the 
strange, unheard-of luxury, which she describes, of rising to her 
books before day on a winter's morning. 



" December Morning, 1782. 

" I love to rise ere gleams the tardy light, 

Winter's pale dawn, — and as warm fires illume 
And cheerful tapers shine around the room, 

Thro' misty windows bend my musing sight, 

Where, round the dusky lawn, the mansions white, 
With shutters clos'd peer faintly thro' the gloom, 
That slow recedes ; while yon gray spires assume, 

Rising from their dark pile, an added height 

By indistinctness given. — Then to decree 

The grateful thoughts to God, ere they unfold 

To Friendship, or the Muse, or seek with glee 
Wisdom's rich page —O hours ! more worth than gold, 

By whose blest use we lengthen life, and, free 
From drear decays of age, outlive the old ! " 



SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 277 

Miss Seward ought to have married, and had a person 
superior to herself for her husband. She would have lost her 
affectation ; doubled her good things ; and, we doubt not, have 
made an entertaining companion for all hours, grave or gay. 
The daughter of the Editor of Beaumont and Fletcher was not a 
mean person, though lost among the egotisms of her native 
town, and the praises of injudicious friends. Meanwhile, it is 
something too much to hear her talk of translating an Ode of 
Horace " while her hair is dressing ! " 

The Psyche of Mks. Tighe has a languid beauty, probably 
resembling that of her person. This lady, who was the daughter 
of the Rev. William Blachford, died in her thirty- seventh year, 
of consumption. The face prefixed to the volume containing 
her poem is very handsome. The greater part of the poem itself is 
little worth, except as a strain of elegance ; but now and then we 
meet with a fancy not unworthy a pupil of Spenser. Cupid, as 
he lies sleeping, has a little suffusing light, stealing from between 
his eyelids. 

" The friendly curtain of indulgent sleep 
Disclos'd not jet his eyes' resistless sway, 
But from their silky veil there seem'd to peep 
Some brilliant glances with a sof ten'd ray, 
Which o'er his features exquisitely play, 
And all his polish'd limbs suffuse with light. 
Thus thro' some narrow space the azure day, 
Sudden its cheerful rays diffusing bright, 

Wide darts its lucid beams to gild the brow of night. ,, 

This is the prettiest " peep o' day boy" which has appeared in 
Ireland. 



No. III. 

MRS. HUNTER, MRS. BARBAULD, LADY ANNE BARNARD, AND 
HANNAH MORE. 

Mrs. Hunter, wife of the celebrated John Hunter the surgeon, 
and sister of the late Sir Everhard Home, published a volume of 
poems, in which were a number of songs that were set to music, 
some of them by Haydn, who was intimate with her. Among 
the latter is one extracted by Mr. Dyce, beginning-^ 

" The season comes when first we met." 



278 SPECIMENS OF BBITISH POETESSES. 

It is one of the composer's most affecting melodies, and not 
too much loaded with science. It is to be found in an elegant 
selection of airs, trios, &c, in two volumes, worthy the attention, 
and not beyond the skill of the amateur, published by Mr. Sams- 
bury, and entitled the Vocal Anthology, Mrs. Hunter was 
author of the well-known Death Song of a Cherokee Indian, 

" The sun sets in night, and the stars shun the day." 

A simple and cordial energy, made up of feeling and good sense, 
is the characteristic of the better part of her writings. 

Hestek Lynch Piozzi, the friend and hostess of Johnson, 
was the daughter of John Salusbury, Esq., of Bodvel in Caernar- 
vonshire. Her first husband was Johnson's friend, Thrale, an 
eminent brewer ; her second, Signor Piozzi, a teacher of music. 
The superiority of The Three Warnings to her other poetical 
pieces, excited a suspicion, as Mr. Dyce observes, that Johnson 
assisted her in its composition ; but there was no foundation for 
the suspicion. The style is a great deal too natural and lively 
for Johnson. If anything were to be suspected of the poem, it 
would be that Mrs. Thrale had found the original in some French 
author, the lax metre and versification resembling those of the 
second order of French tales in verse. 

Mks. Badcliffe's verses are unworthy of her romances. In 
the latter she was what Mr. Mathias called her, "a mighty 
magician ;" — or not to lose the fine sound of his whole phrase, — 
"the mighty magician of Udolpho." In her verses she is a 
tinselled nymph in a pantomime, calling up commonplaces with a 
wand. 

Anna L^etitia Bakbauld is one of the best poetesses in the 
book. It is curious, by the way, to observe how the name of 
Anne predominates in this list of females. There are seventy- 
eight writers in all, besides anonymous ones, and two or three 
whose Christian names are not known ; and out of these seventy- 
eight, eighteen have the name of Anne. The name that prevails 
next, is Mary ; and then Elizabeth. The popularity of Anne is 
perhaps of Protestant origin, and began with Anne Bullen. It 
served at once to proclaim the new opinions, to eschew the reign- 
ing Catholic appellation of Mary, and, at the same time, to appear 
modestly Scriptural. But the sweet gentleness of the name of 
Mary was not to be put down, even by the help of the poor bigot 
of Smithfield. 

Mr. Dyce informs us that Mr. Fox used to speak with admi- 



SPECIMENS OF BKITISH POETESSES. 279 

ration of Mrs. Barbauld's talents, and had got her songs by heart. 
This was an applause worth having. We must extract the whole 
of her Summer Evening's Meditation, if it is only for the sake of 
some noble lines in it, and to present to the reader's imagination 
the picture of a fine -minded female rapt up in thought and 
devotion. She is like the goddess in Milton's Penseroso. The 
two lines marked in capitals are sublime. 

" A SUMMER EVENING'S MEDITATION. 

" 'T is past ! the sultry tyrant of the south 
Has spent his short-liv'd rage : more grateful hours 
Move silent on : the skies no more repel 
The dazzled sight, but, with mild maiden beams 
Of temper'd light, invite the cherish'd eye 
To wander o'er their sphere ; where hung aloft 
Dian's bright crescent, ' like a silver bow 
New strung in heaven,' lifts high its beamy horns, 
Impatient for the night, and seems to push 
Her brother down the sky. Fair Yenus shines, 
Even in the eye of day ; with sweetest beam 
Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood 
Of soften' d radiance from her dewy locks. 
The shadows spread apace ; while meeken'd Eve, 
Her cheek yet warm with blushes, slow retires 
Thro' the Hesperian gardens of the vjest, 
And shuts the gates of day. 'T is now the hour 
When Contemplation, from her sunless haunts, 
The cool damp grotto, or the lonely depth 
Of unpiere'd woods, where wrapt in solid shade 
She mus'd away the gaudy hours of noon, 
And, fed on thoughts unripen'd by the sun, 
Moves forward ; and with radiant finger points 
To yon blue concave swell' d by breath divine, 
Where, one by one, the living eyes of heaven 
Awake, quick kindling o'er the face of ether 
One boundless blaze ; ten thousand trembling fires, 
And dancing lustres, where th' unsteady eye, 
Restless and dazzled, wanders unconfin'd 
O'er all this field of glories : spacious field, 
And worthy of the master : he whose hand, 
With hieroglyphics elder than the Nile, 
Inscrib'd the mystic tablet ; hung on high 
To public gaze ; and said, Adore, O man, 
The finger of thy God ! From what pure wells 
Of milky light, what soft o'erflowing urn, 
Are all these lamps so fill'd ? these friendly lamps 
For ever streaming o'er the azure deep 
To point our path, and light us to our home. 
How soft they slide along their lucid spheres ! 
And, silent as the foot of time, fulfil 



280 SPECIMENS OF BBITISH POETESSES. 

Their destin'd course ! Nature's self is hush'd, 

And, but a scattered leaf, which rustles thro' 

The thick-wove foliage, not a sound is heard 

To break the midnight air ; tho' the raised ear, 

Intensely listening, drinks in every breath. 

How deep the silence, yet how loud the praise ! 

But are they silent all ? or is there not 

A tongue in every star that talks with man, 

And wooes him to be wise ? nor wooes in vain : 

This dead of midnight is the noon of thought, 

And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars. 

At this still hour the self-collected soul 

Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there 

Of high descent, and more than mortal rank ; 

An embryo God ; a spark of fire divine, 

Which must burn on for ages, when the sun 

(Fair transitory creature of a day) 

Has closed his golden eye, and, wrapt in shades, 

Forgets his wonted journey thro' the east. 

" Ye citadels of light, and seats of Gods ! 
Perhaps my future home, from whence the soul, 
Revolving periods past, may oft look back, 
With recollected tenderness, on all 
The various busy scenes she left below, 
Its deep-laid projects and its strange events, 
As on some fond and doting tale that sooth'd 
Her infant hours— be it lawful now 
To tread the hallow'd circle of your courts, 
And with mute wonder and delighted awe 
Approach your burning confines ! — Seiz'd in thought, 
On fancy's wild and roving wing I sail 
From the green borders of the peopled earth, 
And the pale moon, her duteous fair attendant ; 
From solitary Mars ; from the vast orb 
Of Jupiter, whose huge gigantic bulk 
Dances in ether like the lightest leaf ; 
To the dim verge, the suburbs of the system, 
Where cheerless Saturn, midst his watery moons. 
Girt with a lucid zone, in gloomy pomp, 
Sits like an exil'd monarch : fearless thence 
I launch into the trackless deeps of space, 
Where, burning round, ten thousand suns appear, 
Of elder beam ; which ask no leave to shine 
Of our terrestrial star, nor borrow light 
From the proud regent of our scanty day ; 
Sons of the morning, first-born of creation, 
And only less than Him who marks their track, 
And guides their fiery wheels. Here must I stop. 
Or is there aught beyond ? What hand unseen 
Impels me onward thro' the glowing orbs 
Of habitable nature, far remote, 



SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 281 

To the dread confines of eternal night, 
To solitudes of vast unpeopled space, 
The deserts of creation wide and wild, 
Where embryo systems and unkindled suns 
Sleep in the womb of chaos ? fancy droops, 
And thought astonish'd stops her bold career. 
But. O thou mighty mind ! whose powerful word 
Said, Thus let all things be, and thus they were, 
Where shall I seek thy presence ? how unblam'd 

Invoke thy dread perfection ? 

Have the broad eyelids of the morn beheld thee ? 
Or does the beamy shoulder of Orion 
Support thy throne ? O look with pity down 
On erring, guilty man ! not in thy names 
Of terror clad ; not with those thunders arm'd 
That conscious Sinai felt, when fear appall'd 
The scatter'd tribes ! Thou hast a gentler voice, 
That whispers comfort to the swelling heart, 
Abash'd, yet longing to behold her Maker. 

" But now, my soul, unus'd to stretch her powers 
In flight so daring, drops her weary wing, 
And seeks again the known accustom'd spot, 
Drest up with sun, and shade, and lawns, and streams ; 
A mansion fair and spacious for its guest, 
And full, replete, with wonders. Let me here, 
Content and grateful, wait the appointed time, 
And ripen for the skies. The hour will come 
When all these splendours, bursting on my sight, 
Shall stand unveil'd, and to my ravish'd sense 
Unlock the glories of the world unknown." 

Mrs. Barbauld, like other persons of genuine fancy, had great 
good sense. Mr. Hazlitt has eulogized her Essay on the Incon- 
sistency of our Expectations. If ever she committed a mistake, 
she was the sort of woman to retrieve it, or to bear the conse- 
quences in the best manner. It is generally understood that she 
did make one when she married Mr. Barbauld, — a " little 
Presbyterian parson," as Johnson indignantly called him. Not 
that he was not a good man, but he was very much her inferior. 
11 Such. tricks hath strong imagination," even when united with 
the strongest understanding. To judge by her writings (and by 
what better things can we judge, if they have the right look of 
sincerity ?) Mrs. Barbauld ought to have had a Raleigh or Sidney 
for her lover. She had both intellect and passion enough to 
match a spirit heroical. The song beginning 

" Come here, fond youth, whoe'er thou be," 

Jias all the devoted energy of the old poets, 



282 SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 

Lady Anne Barnard, thou that didst write the ballad of 
" Auld Robin Gray," which must have suffused more eyes with 
tears of the first water than any other ballad that ever was 
written, we hail, and pay thee homage, knowing thee now for the 
first time by thy real name ! But why wast thou desirous of 
being only a woman of quality, when thou ought' st to have been 
(as nature intended thee) nothing but the finest gentlewoman of 
thy time ? And what bad example was it that, joining with the 
sophistications of thy rank, did make thee so anxious to keep 
thy secret from the world, and ashamed to be spoken of as an 
authoress ? Shall habit and education be so strong with those 
who ought to form instead of being formed by them ? Shall 
they render such understandings as thine insensible to the humi- 
liation of the fancied dignity of concealment, and the poor pride 
of being ashamed to give pleasure ? 

The following is the interesting account given by Lady Anne 
of the birth and fortunes of her ballad : for interesting it is, and 
we felt delighted to meet with it ; though our delight was damped 
by the considerations just mentioned. We used to think we 
could walk barefoot to Scotland to see the author of the finest 
ballad in the world. We now began to doubt ; not because we 
feared the fate of the person who endeavoured to " entrap the 
truth " from her (though the reception he met with, we think, 
was hard, considering that an author at once popular and anony- 
mous is not likely to have escaped with too nice a conscience in 
matters of veracity), but because we lose our inclination to see 
uncommon people who condescend to wear common masks. We 
preface her Ladyship's account with Mr. Dyce's introduction : — 

"Lady Anne Barnard (born , died 1825), sister of the late Earl 

of Balcarras, and wife of Sir Andrew Barnard, wrote the charming song 
of ' Auld Robin Gray.' A quarto tract, edited by 'the Ariosto of the 
North,' and circulated among the members of the Bannatyne Club, con- 
tains the original ballad, as corrected by Lady Anne, and two continuations 
by the same authoress ; while the Introduction consists almost entirely of 
a very interesting letter from her to the Editor, dated July 1823, part 
of which I take the liberty of inserting here : — 

" ' Robin Gray/ so called from its being the name of the old herd at 
Balcarras, was born soon after the close of the year 1771. My sister 
Margaret had married, and accompanied her husband to London ; I was 
melancholy, and endeavoured to amuse myself by attempting a few poetical 
trifles. There was an ancient Scotch melody, of which I was passionately 

fond ; , who lived before your day, used to sing it to us at 

Balcarras. She did not object to its having improper words, though I did. 
I longed to sing old Sophy's air to different words, and give to its plaintive 



SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 283 

tones some little history of virtuous distress in humble life, such as might 
suit it. While attempting to effect this in my closet, I called to my little 
sister, now Lady Hardwicke, who was the only person near me : * I have 
been writing a ballad, my dear ; I am oppressing my heroine with many 
misfortunes. I have already sent her Jamie to sea — and broken her father's 
arm — and made her mother fall sick — and given her Auld Kobin Gray for 
her lover ; but I wish to load her with a fifth sorrow within the four lines, 
poor thing ! Help me to one.' — ' Steal the cow, sister Anne,' said the 
little Elizabeth. The cow was immediately lifted by me, and the song 
completed. At our fireside, and amongst our neighbours, i Auld Kobin 
Gray ' was always called for. I was pleased in secret with the appro- 
bation it met with ; but such was my dread of being suspected of writing 
anything, perceiving the shyness it created in those who could write 
nothing, that I carefully kept my own secret. * * * 

" ' Meanwhile, little as this matter seems to have been worthy of a 
dispute, it afterwards became a party question between the sixteenth and 
eighteenth centuries. ' Robin Gray ' was either a very ancient ballad, 
composed perhaps by David Rizzio, and a great curiosity, or a very modern 
matter, and no curiosity at all. I was persecuted to avow whether I had 
written it or not, — where I had got it. Old Sophy kept my counsel, and I 
kept my own, in spite of the gratification of seeing a reward of twenty 
guineas offered in the newspapers to the person who should ascertain the 
point past a doubt, and the still more flattering circumstance of a visit from 
Mr. Jerningham, secretary to the Antiquarian Society, who endeavoured 
to entrap the truth from me in a manner I took amiss. Had he asked me 
the question obligingly, I should have told him the fact distinctly and 
confidentially. The annoyance, however, of this important ambassador 
from the antiquaries, was amply repaid to me by the noble exhibition of 
the ' Ballat of Auld Robin Gray's Courtship,' as performed by dancing-dogs 
under my window. It proved its popularity from the highest to the lowest, 
and gave me pleasure while I hugged myself in my obscurity." 

" The two versions of the second part were written many years after the 
first ; in them, Auld Robin Gray falls sick, — confesses that he himself 
stole the cow, in order to force Jenny to marry him — leaves to Jamie all 
his possessions, — dies, — and the young couple, of course, are united. 
Neither of the continuations is given here, because, though both are 
beautiful, they are very inferior to the original tale, and greatly injure its 
effect." 

" AULD ROBIN GRAY. 

" When the sheep are in the fauld, when the cows come hame, 
When a* the weary world to quiet rest are gane, 
The woes of my heart fa* in showers frae my ee, 
Unken'd by my gudeman, who soundly sleeps by me. 

" Young Jamie loo'd me weel, and sought me for his bride ; 
But saving ae crown-piece, he'd naething else beside. 
To make the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea ; 
And the crown and the pound, oh ! they were baith for me ! 

" Before he had been gane a twelvemonth and a day, 
My father brak his arm, our cow was stown away ; 
My mother she fell sick — my Jamie was at sea — 
And Auld Robin Gray, oh \ he came a-courting me. 



284 SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. 

" My father cou'dna work — my mother cou'dna spin ; 
I toil'd day and night, but their bread I cou'dna win ; 
Auld Rob maintain'd them baith, arid, wi' tears in his ee, 
Said, ' Jenny, oh ! for their sakes, will you marry me ? ' 

f My heart it said Na, and I look'd for Jamie back ; 
But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack : 
His ship it was a wrack ! Why didna Jamie dee ? 
Or, wherefore am I spar'd to cry out, Woe is me ! 

'* My father argued sair — my mother didna speak, 
But she looked in my face till my heart was tike to break; 
They gied him my hand, but my heart was in the sea ; 
And so Auld Robin Gray, he was gudeman to me. 

" I hadna been his wife, a week but only four, 
When mournfu' as I sat on the stane at my door, 
I saw my Jamie's ghaist — I cou'dna think it he, 
Till he said, ' I'm come hame, my love, to marry thee ! ' 

" O sair, sair did we greet, and mickle say of a' ; 
Ae kiss we took, nae mair — I bade him gang awa. 
/ wish that I were dead, but I 'm no like to dee; 
For oh, I am but young to cry out, Woe is me ! 

" I gang like a ghaist, and I carena much to spin ; 
Id arena think o' Jamie, for that wad be a sin. 
But I will do my best a gudewife aye to be, 
For Auld Robin Gray, oh ! he is sae kind to me." 

Such is the most pathetic ballad that ever was written ; and 
such are. the marriages which it is not accounted a sin to conse- 
crate. The old man in this scene of moral perplexity is good 
and generous in everything but his dotage ; the parents not only 
take themselves for kind ones, but are so, with the exception of 
their will to sacrifice their child ; and ignorance and example 
excuse all three ! Finally, the poor slaves who suffer from such 
abuses, and the cleverer, but in some respects not better-taught 
ones, who think them to be tolerated out of some fear of ill or 
envy of alteration, agree to go on calling this world a " vale of 
tears," they themselves taking care all the while to keep up a 
proper quantity of the supply ! To run indignant pens into such 
heaps of absurdity is surely to prepare for their breaking up. 

Miss Hannah Moee, a lady not out of harmony with these 
discords which mankind have been so long taking for their 
melancholy music, is the one that comes next. It is the first 
time we ever read any of her verses ; and she has fairly surprised 
us, not only with some capital good sense, but with liberal and 
feeling sentiments ! How could a heart, capable of uttering such 
things, get encrusted with Calvinism ! and that, too, not out of 



SPECIMENS OP BRITISH POETESSES. 285 

fear and bad health, but in full possession, as it should seem, 
both of cheerfulness and sensibility ! Oh, strange effects of 
example and bringing up ! when humanity itself can be made to 
believe in the divineness of what is inhuman ! " Sweet Sensi- 
bility ! " cries our fair advocate of eternal punishment— 

" Sweet Sensibility ! thou keen delight ! 
Unprompted moral ! sudden sense of right ! 
Perception exquisite ! fair virtue's seed ! 
Thou quick precursor of the liberal deed ! 
Thou hasty conscience ! reason's blushing morn ! 
Instinctive kindness ere reflection's born ! 
Prompt sense of equity ! to thee belongs 
The swift redress of unexamin'd wrongs ! 
Eager to serve, the cause perhaps untried, 
But always apt to choose the suffering side ! 
To those who know thee not, no words can paint, 
And those who know thee, know all words are faint." 

And again : — 

" Since life's best joys consist in peace and ease, 
And tho' but few can serve, yet all may please, 
O let th' ungentle spirit learn from hence, 
A small unkindness is a great offence" 

The whole poem, with the exception of some objections to 
preachers of benevolence like Sterne (who must be taken, like 
the fall of the dew, in their general effect upon the mass of the 
world) is full of good sense and feeling ; though what the fair 
theologian guards us against in our estimation of complexional 
good-nature, is to be carried a good deal farther than she 
supposes. " As Feeling," she says, — 

tends to good, or leans to ill, 



It gives fresh force to vice or principle ; 

'T is not a gift peculiar to the good, 

'T is often but a virtue of the blood ; 

And what would seem Compassion's moral flow, 

Is but a circulation swift or slow." 

True ; and what would seem religion's happy flow is often 
nothing better. But this argues nothing against religion or 
compassion. Whatever tends to secure the happiest flow of the 
blood provides best for the ends of virtue, if happiness be virtue's 
object. A man, it is true, may begin with being happy, on the 
mere strength of the purity and vivacity of his pulse : children do 
so ; but he must have derived his constitution from very virtuous, 
temperate, and happy parents indeed, and be a great fool to boot, 



286 SPECIMENS OF BKITISH POETESSES. 

and wanting in the commonest sympathies of his nature, if he 
can continue happy, and yet be a bad man : and then he could 
not be bad, in the worst sense of the word, for his defects would 
excuse him. It is time for philosophy and true religion to know 
one another, and not hesitate to follow the most impartial truths 
into their consequences. If " a small unkindness is a great 
offence, " what could Miss Hannah More have said to the 
infliction of eternal punishment ? Or are God and his ways 
eternally to be represented as something so different from the 
best attributes of humanity, that the wonder must be, how 
humanity can survive in spite of the mistake ? The truth is, 
that the circulation of Miss More's own blood was a better 
thing than all her doctrines put together ; and luckily it is a 
much more universal iuheritance. The heart of man is con- 
stantly sweeping away the errors he gets into his brain. 

There is a good deal of sense and wit in the extract from 
Florio, a Tale for Fine Gentlemen and Fine Ladies ; but Miss 
More is for attributing the vices of disingenuousness, sneering, 
and sensuality, to freethinkers exclusively ; which is disingenuous on 
her own part ; as if these vices were not shared by the inconsistent 
of all classes. She herself sneers in the very act of denouncing 
sneerers ; nor did we ever know that a joke was spared by the 
orthodox when they could get one. 

We must now , bring our extracts to a conclusion. There are 
some agreeable specimens of Miss Baillie ; an admirable ballad 
on the Wind, attributed to Mr. Wordsworth's sister; and some 
pieces by Miss Landon and Mrs. Hemans, two popular writers, 
who would have brought their pearls to greater perfection if they 
had concentrated their faculties a little, and been content not to 
manufacture so many. But as these ladies bring us among their 
living contemporaries, and criticism becomes a matter of great 
delicacy, we must resist the temptation of being carried further. 



( 287 ) 



DUCHESS OF ST. ALBANS, AND MARKIAGES 
FBOM THE STAGE. 

COMIC ACTORS AND ACTRESSES MORE ENGAGING TO THE RECOLLECTION 
THAN TRAGIC— CHARLES THE SECOND AND NELL GWYNN — MARRIAGE 
OF HARRIET MELLON WITH THE DUKE OF ST. ALBANS AND MR. 
COUTTS — MARRIAGES OF LUCRETIA BRADSHAW WITH MR. FOLKES, 
OF ANASTASIA ROBINSON WITH LORD PETERBOROUGH, BEARD THE 
SINGER WITH LADY HENRIETTA HERBERT, LAYINIA FENTON WITH 
THE DUKE OF BOLTON, MARY WOFFINGTON WITH CAPTAIN CHOL- 
MONDELEY, SIGNOR GALLINI THE DANCER WITH LADY ELIZABETH 
BERTIE, O'BRIEN THE COMEDIAN WITH LADY SUSAN FOX, ELIZABETH 
LINLEY WITH RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, ELIZABETH FARREN 
WITH THE EARL OF DERBY, LOUISA BRUNTON WITH EARL CRAVEN, 
MARY CATHERINE BOLTON WITH LORD THURLOW — REMARKS ON 
MARRIAGES FROM THE STAGE. 

Besides the interest in such subjects, which lies below the 
surface, most people are willing to hear of actors and actresses. . 
They are a link between the domesticities which they represent, 
and the public life to which they become allied by the representa- 
tion. Their talent (generally speaking) is not felt to be of a 
rarity or happiness calculated to excite envy ; their animal spirits 
are welcomed the more for that drawback ; and the matters they 
deal with bring us into their society as if into their own houses, 
humours, and daily life. Hence, in reading accounts of them, 
we naturally incline more to the comic or familiar individuals 
among them, than to the tragic ; and more to the women than the 
men. We like to hear the name of Betterton ; but Cibber, some- 
how, is the more welcome. "We care little for Quin the tragedian ; 
but Quin the good fellow, the boon companion, the deliverer of 
Thomson from the spunging-house, is dear to us. Even Garrick's 
name is injured by the footing he obtained in high life. We are 
not sure whether he was not too prosperous to be happy ; too 
much compelled to bow, and deteriorate himself, into the airs of a 
common gentleman. On the other hand, though Foote was a 
man of birth, we have no misgivings about Foote (except on the 
moral score). He always seems " taking off" somebody, or 
cracking jokes. Bannister, Dodd, Parsons, are hearty names ; 



288 MARRIAGES FROM THE STAGE. 

and as to women, — Mrs. Siddons, it is true, " queens it" apart; 
but, somehow, we are inclined to let her, and leave her. On the 
other hand, who ever tires of the names of Oldfield, and Brace- 
girdle , and Woffington ? All the flutters of the fans of two 
centuries, and all the solid merits of bodices and petticoats, come 
down to us in their names ; chequering Covent Garden like chintz, 
and bringing along with them the periwigged and scented glories 
of the Congreves and Steeles. Who would not willingly hear 
more of " Mistress Knipp," whom the snug and didactic Pepys 
detained with him a whole night on purpose to teach her his song 
of "Beauty, retire ?" Mrs. Jordan's laugh beat even the petit 
ris foldtre (the little giddy laugh) of Madame d'Albret, which 
Marot says was enough to raise a man from the dead. At least 
we are not sure that there was a heart in the giddiness of the one, 
but who doubts it that ever heard the other ? And poor Nell 
Gwynn, " bred up to serve strong waters to the gentlemen" (as 
she humbly said of her tavern life), what a corner has not virtue 
in its heart to store her memory in, for the vindication of natural 
goodness, and the rebuke of the uncharitable ? She was the only 
one of Charles's mistresses whose claim of fidelity towards him 
one can have any faith in. We saw not long ago, in some book, 
a charge made against that prince, of uttering, as the last 
sentence on his death-bed, the words " Don't let poor Nelly 
starve." They were adduced as a triumphant proof of his irre- 
ligion and profligacy, and of his being wicked to the last. Why, 
they were the most Christian words he is ever known to have 
spoken. They showed, that with all the selfishness induced by 
his evil breeding, he could muster up heart enough in the agonies 
of death, and at what might be thought the most fearful of hazards, 
to think of a fellow-creature with sympathy, and that, too, in the 
humblest of his circle. But he recognized in her a loving nature, 
— the only one, most likely, he had ever met with. 

It is a curious set-off against the supposed inferiority of the 
St. Albans' descent from Charles the Second, to those of the 
Richmonds and others, that the chances of Nelly's constancy are 
greater than can be reckoned upon with the finer ladies, who 
fancied themselves qualified to despise her. She thought so 
herself; and so will every one who knows their histories. The 
Lennoxes and Fitzroys (and Beauclercs too) have since got plenty 
of royal blood in their veins through other channels, as far as any 
such channels can be depended on : and, indeed, the swarthy 
complexion of Charles (derived from the Medici family) is still 



mahriagks fbom the stage. 289 

pointed at as distinguisning his descendants in more than one 
branch, thongh we believe the Beanclercs have it most visibly. 
Charles Fox had it throngh his mother (a Lennox) ; bnt Tophani 
Beanclerc, Dr. Johnson's Mend, resembled his lawless ancestors, 
if we are not mistaken, in features and shape, as well as hue (to 
say nothing of morals) ; and happening to reside in the neighbour- 
hood of the late Duke of St. Albans at the time of his marriage, 
the village barber, who had been sent for to shave him, told us, 
that the ducal feet, which he had chanced to see in slippers, were 
as dark- skinned as the face. We must be excused for relating 
Biis ircumstance, in consideration of our zeal for the better part 
of poor Nelly's fame. 

There was a singular re:: ; spective fitness in the marriage of 
the Duke of St. Albans with Harriet Mellon. Even the aristo- 

must have beheld it with something of a saturnine amuse- 
The public unequivocally enjoyed ::. Moralists were 
perplex : especially tfa ise of the two extremes, — the "out- 
rageously virtuous," who gladly thought the worst of it, and the 
most liberal speculators upon the ordinations of Providence ; who 
(though coming to a conclusion for the best) are struck with 
wonder to see one system of morals proclaimed from the high 

. and another acted upon, and associated with flourishing 
perpetuities. Charles the ^:::nd, who was the most undisi 
libertine that ever sat on the British throne, has left hundir 
illegitimate descendants (thousands rather), the chiefs of whose 
families are still flourishing in the highest rank, and carrying 
forward the united dignities of a zeal for church and state, and 
an unlawful origin. The spectacle, it must be owned, is puzzling. 
But seen with an eye of charity the only final reconciler), there 
is " a preferment in it,' ? better than what is supposed to include, 
but which it will be easier to investigate some hundreds of years 
hence, when loyalty and piety shall L seas ed' to be embarr s s e I 
with stumbling-blocks, which they at once bow down to and are 
bound to h e sh sked at. 

In speaking as we do, howe~r:\ :: the Duke's marriage, we 
do not at all assume that Harriet Mellon and Nell Grwynn had 
led the same kind of life. This, vre are aware, is the general 
aption, or something like it; but the Duchess was introduced 
at the late court, where, in spite of certain retrospective appear- 
the contrary, the demands on conventional propriety were 
understood to be in no lax keeping in the hands of the present 
Queen-dowager: — and Mr. Coutts was very old when he died — : 

19 



290 MARRIAGES FROM THE STAGE. 

upwards of ninety, we believe — and had not been married many- 
years. Who is to say that his residence with the lady, under any 
circumstances, was not of as innocent a nature as the marriage ? 
Who knows anything to the contrary ? and who, in default of 
knowing it, has a right to assert it ? A case was probably made 
out for the introduction at court, which we are bound, on the 
lady's word, to take for granted. We daily take hundreds of 
more unlikely things for granted on similar accounts, especially in 
high life. Half the west-end of the town would be a mere chaos 
and tempest from morn to night, if words, and even deeds, had 
not the handsomest constructions put upon them. Besides, 
marriages have taken place between ladies and their elders in 
numerous well-authenticated instances, where the gentleman 
sought nothing but a nurse or a pleasant friend, and was desirous 
of gifting her with his wealth to show his gratitude ; — and a very 
reasonable gratitude, too, considering how precious the moments 
of life are, — provided no just expectations suffer for it, on the 
part of others. It has been hinted, that the Duchess, when 
young, was fond of money, and that when she was an actress at 
seaports, she did not scruple to bustle about among the officers, 
in behalf of the tickets for her benefit-nights. But she had been 
left with a mother to support ; and even if she had gone some- 
what far for that purpose, no respecter of the filial virtues would 
be quick to condemn her. The consideration of a mother to 
support is itself a delicacy, which may reasonably set aside fifty 
others. Perhaps this was one of the very things that the old 
banker liked her for. He may have been so disgusted with the 
doubtful virtues and real shabbiness of many rich people, that the 
sight of one hearty nature might have been a priceless refresh- 
ment to him ; and ^vhen he found it combined with a face to 
match, and a pleasant conversation, he might, for aught we know, 
have realized for the first time a dream of his youth. To be sure, 
it is alleged against him, that his first wife had been a maid- 
servant. That does not look, certainly, as if he had been accus- 
tomed to seek for a partner in the circles of fashion ; but then the 
circumstance, as far it goes, tells against the experience he had 
had of them ; and it is not impossible even for a maid-servant to 
be a gentlewoman at heart. Be this as it may (for we know 
nothing whatsoever of him or his connexions), the will of the 
Duchess seems to show, that he was in one striking respect worthy 
of her regard, and she of his ; for she has left the bulk of his 
property to his favourite relation, and in so doing, most likely 



MARRIAGES FROM THE STAGE. 291 

acted up to a principle which he had justly reckoned upon. It is 
true, she has thus given riches to one that does not seem to have 
needed them, and who will probably be not a whit the happier for 
the superabundance ; but such considerations are not to be ex- 
pected of people who live in what is called the world. The Duke, 
at the same time, has not been forgotten, nor poorly treated : the 
remains of the Duchess have been gathered into the family vault : 
and she has left the reputation of a woman not contemptuous of 
her origin, nay, desirous to encourage her former profession, and 
charitable to the poor. We thus infer that her conduct was held 
reasonable and honourable by all parties. 

The Duchess of St. Albans had a more refined look in her 
younger days, at least in her favourite characters, than was 
observable in her countenance latterly. There was never any 
genius in her acting, nor much sustainment of character in any 
respect. She seemed never to have taken to the boards with 
thorough good- will. Yet there was archness and agreeableness, — 
a good deal that looked as if it could be pleasant off the stage. 
She had black hair, fine eyes, a good-humoured mouth, and an 
expression upon the whole of sensual but not unamiable intelli- 
gence. This she retained in after life, together with the fine eyes 
and the look of good-humour ; but the unlimited power of self- 
indulgence had not helped to refine it. This, however, was a 
deterioration which many a high-born Duchess has shared with 
her. We used to see her buying flowers at the nursery-grounds, 
and riding out in her chaise and four, or barouche, often with the 
Duke. Shortly before her death, we repeatedly met her by 
herself, but always in the chaise and four, with postilions in the 
ducal livery. She seemed to say, but more innocently than the 
personage in the play, " I am Duchess of Malfy still." We used 
to think that with this fondness for air and exercise, and her 
natural good-humour, she would attain to long life ; but there 
was more air than exercise, and more luxury than either ; and 
poor Duchess Harriet was too rich, and had too many good 
things, to continue to enjoy any. Had she ^remained Harriet 
Mellon, and disposed of benefit-tickets as of old, she would pro- 
bably have been alive and merry still. However, she had a fine 
wondering time of it, — a romance of real life ; and no harm's 
done, not even to the peerage ! 

The first person among the gentry who took a wife from the 
stage, was Martin Folkes the antiquary, a man of fortune, who 
about the year 1713 married Lucretia Bradshaw, a representa- 



292 MARKIAGES FKOM THE STAGE. 

tive of the sprightly heroines of Farquhar and Vanbrugh. The 
author of the History of the English Stage, quoted in the work 
that we are about to refer to, calls her " one of the greatest and 
most promising genii of her time," and says that Mr. Folkes 
made her his wife " for her exemplary and prudent conduct." 
He adds, that " it was a rule with her, in her profession, to make 
herself mistress of her art, and leave the figure and action to 
nature." What he means by this is not clear. Probably for 
" art" we should read " part;" which would imply, that the fair 
Lucretia got her dialogue well by rote, and then gave herself up, 
without further study, to the impulses of the character ; which in 
such lively ones as those of " Corinna" in the Confederacy, and 
" Angelica" in the Constant Couple, probably disposed the gallant 
virtuoso to inquire whether she could be as prudent as she was 
agreeable. From her performance of characters of this descrip- 
tion, Mr. Nichols hastily infers that she must have been a 
handsome woman at least, had a good figure, and probably second- 
rate theatrical talent." * Be this as it may, the poor lady ulti- 
mately lost her reason. We are not told anything of her origin 
or connexions. 

The man who first imitated this singular example, was a 
personage celebrated for his gallantry in all senses of the word — ■ 
the famous Lord Peterborough, the hero of the war of the succes- 
sion in Spain, and friend of Pope and Swift. The date of the 
marriage is not known, for it was long kept secret ; but in the 
year before his lordship died (1735) he publicly acknowledged as 
his countess the celebrated Anastasia Eobinson, the singer. She 
had appeared upon the stage, but was chiefly known in the 
concert-room. Her father was a portrait-painter of good family, 
who had studied in Italy, was master of the Italian language, and 
very fond of music ; but losing his sight, the daughter, much 
against her inclination in other respects, turned her own passion 
for music, which he had cultivated, into a means of living for the 
family. Dr. Burney, however, who has related the story at large 
after his gossiping fashion, shall give the account in his own 
words. The subject renders it interesting : — 

" Mrs. Anastasia Robinson," he tells us, "was of a middling stature, 
not handsome, but of a pleasing mode.^t countenance, with large blue eyes. 
Her deportment was easy, unaffected, and graceful. Her manner and 
address very engaging, and her behaviour, on all occasions, that of a gentle- 
woman with perfect propriety. She was not only liked by all her acquaint- 

* Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 588. 



MARRIAGES FROM THE STAGE. 293 

ance, but loved and caressed by persons of the highest rank, with whom 
she appeared always equal, without assuming. Her father's house in 
Golden Square was frequented by all the men of genius and refined taste 
of the times. Among the number of persons of distinction who frequented 
Mr. Robinson's house, and seemed to distinguish his daughter in a par- 
ticular manner, were the Earl of Peterborough and General H . The 

latter had shown a long attachment to her, and his attentions were so 
remarkable that they seemed more than the effects of common politeness ; 
and as he was a very agreeable man and in good circumstances, he was 
favourably received, not doubting but that his intentions were honourable. 
A declaration of a very contrary nature was treated with the contempt it 
deserved, though Mrs. A. Robinson was very much prepossessed in his 
favour. 

" Soon after this, Lord P endeavoured to convince her of his partial 

regard for her ; but, agreeable and artful as he was, she remained very 
much upon her guard, which rather increased than diminished his admira- 
tion and passion for her. Yet still his pride struggled with his inclination ; 
for all this time she was engaged to sing in public, a circumstance very 
grievous to her ; but urged by the best of motives, she submitted to it in 
order to assist her parents, whose fortune was much reduced by Mr. Robin- 
son's loss of sight, which deprived him of the benefit of his profession as a 
painter. 

" At length Lord P made his declaration on honourable terms ; he 

found it would be vain to make proposals on any other, and as he omitted 
no circumstance that could engage her esteem and gratitude, she accepted 
them, as she was sincerely attached to him. He earnestly requested her 
keeping it a secret till it was a more convenient time for him to make it 
known, to which she readily consented, having a perfect confidence in his 
honour. Among the persons of distinction that professed a friendship for 
Mrs. A. Robinson were the Earl and Countess of Oxford, daughter-in-law 
to the Lord Treasurer Oxford, who not only bore every public testimony of 
affection and esteem for Mrs. A. Robinson, but Lady Oxford attended her 

when she was privately married to the Earl of P , and Lady P 

ever acknowledged her obligations with the warmest gratitude ; and after 
Lady Oxford's death, she was particularly distinguished by the Duchess of 
Portland, Lady Oxford's daughter, and was always mentioned by her with 
the greatest kindness, for the many friendly offices she used to do her in 
her childhood, when in Lady Oxford's family, which made a lasting im- 
pression on the Duchess of Portland's noble and generous heart. 

"After the death of Mr. Robinson, Lord P took a house near 

Fulham, in the neighbourhood of his own villa at Parson's Green, where 
he settled Mrs. Robinson and her mother. They never lived under the 
same roof, till the earl, being seized with a violent fit of illness, solicited 
her to attend him at Mount Bevis, near Southampton, which she refused 
with firmness, but upon condition that, though still denied to take his name, 
she might be permitted to wear her wedding-ring ; to which, finding her 
inexorable, he at length consented. 

" His haughty spirit was still reluctant to the making a declaration that 
would have done justice to so worthy a character as the person to whom he 
was now united, and indeed, his uncontrollable temper, and high opinion of 
his own actions, made him a very awful husband, ill-suited to Lady P 's 



294 MABRIA.GES FHOM THE STAGE. 

good sense, amiable temper, and delicate sentiments. She was a Homan 
Catholic, but never gave offence to those of a contrary opinion, though very- 
strict in what she thought her duty. Her excellent principles and fortitude 
of mind supported her through many severe trials in her conjugal state. 
But at last he prevailed upon himself to do her justice, instigated, it is 
supposed, by his bad state of health, which obliged him to seek another 
climate ; and she absolutely refused to go with him unless he declared his 
marriage. Her attendance upon him in his illness nearly cost her her life. 

" He appointed a day for all his nearest relations to meet him at an 
apartment, over the gateway of St. James's Palace, belonging to Mr. Pointz, 
who was married to Lord Peterborough's niece, and at that time preceptor 

to Prince William, afterwards Duke of Cumberland. Lord P also 

appointed Lady P to be there at the same time. When they were all 

assembled, he began a most eloquent oration, enumerating all the virtues 
and perfections of Mrs. A. Robinson, and the rectitude of her conduct 
during his long acquaintance with her, for which he acknowledged his great 
obligations and sincere attachment, declaring he was determined to do her 
that justice which he ought to have done long ago, which was presenting 
her to all his family as his wife. He spoke this harangue with so much 

energy, and in parts so pathetically, that Lady P not being apprised 

of his intentions, was so affected that she fainted away in the midst of the 
company. 

" After Lord P— — 's death she lived a very retired life, chiefly at Mount 
Bevis, and was seldom prevailed on to leave that habitation, but by the 
Duchess of Portland, who was always happy to have her company at Bul- 
strode, when she could obtain it, and often visited her at her own house. 

" Among Lord P 's papers she found his memoirs, written by himself, 

in which he declared he had been guilty of such actions as would have 
reflected very much upon his character. For which reason she burnt them. 
This, however, contributed to complete the excellency of her principles, 
though it did not fail giving offence to the curious inquirers after anecdotes 
of so remarkable a character as that of the Earl of Peterborough." * 

Lord Peterborough was an extraordinary person in every 
respect, and very likely he perplexed not a little the faculties of 
poor Anastasia Robinson. But the perplexity was not all of his 
own creation. She must have known his reputation as a general 
lover before she married him ; and though the vivacity of his 
temperament seems to have kept him young in a manner to the 
last, yet the disproportion of their ages was great enough to 
warrant a doubt of the disinterestedness of her acquiescence. 
Not that her heart might have been altogether unimpressed, 
especially by a sort of gratitude, for she appears to have been a 
really kind and gentle creature ; and if Marmontel was young 
enough at fifty-six to win the affections of a young wife, and 
make her the grateful mother of a family, the lively conqueror of 
Spain, the most active man of his time, who had " seen more 

* Burney's History of Music, vol. iv. 



MARRIAGES FROM THE STAGE. 295 

princes and postilions than any man in Europe," might have 
appeared no such frightful senior in the eyes of the flattered 
singer at fifty-seven ; for it was at that age he appears to have 
first known her. Even at seventy-nine, when he died, the fire of 
his nature appeared so inexhaustible, that Pope exclaimed in 
astonishment, " This man can neither live nor die like any one 
else." * But then he was a conqueror, and an earl withal, and a 
rich man, and had a riband and star at his breast. Chi set ? as 
the good-natured Italians say, when a gossiping question is to be 
determined — Who knows ? And so we take leave of the gallant 
Earl of Peterborough and the fair Anastasia.f 

The ladies of quality now commence their example. On the 
8th of January, 1739, the Lady Henrietta Herbert, widow of 
Lord Edward Herbert, second son of the Marquis of Powis, and 
daughter of James, first Earl of Waldegrave, was married to 
John Beard, the singer. We have a pleasure in stating the 
circumstance as formally as possible, for three reasons : first, 

* See his interesting account of Peterborough's latter moments in one 
of his Letters. 

f In the Letters and Works of Lady Mary Worthy Montagu, lately 
edited by her great-grandson, Lord WharnclirTe, is the following specimen of 
the tattle of the day from the sprightly pen of her ladyship, who for obvious 
reasons is too much given to scandal, and willing to find fault. " Would 
any one believe that Lady Holdernesse is a beauty and in love ? and that 
Mrs. Robinson is at the same time a prude and a kept mistress ? and these 
things in spite of nature and fortune. The first of these ladies is tenderly 
attached to the polite Mr. M * * *, and sunk in all the joys of happy love, 
notwithstanding she wants the use of her two hands by a rheumatism, and 
he has an arm that he cannot move. I wish I could tell you the particulars 
of this amour, which seems to me as curious as that between two oysters, 
and as well worth the serious attention of the naturalist. The second 
heroine has engaged half the town in arms, from the nicety of her virtue, 
which was not able to bear the too near approach of Senesino in the opera, 
and her condescension in accepting of Lord Peterborough for a champion ; 
who has signalized both his love and courage upon this occasion in as many 
instances as ever Don Quixote did for Dulcinea. Poor Senesino, like a 
vanquished giant, was forced to confess upon his knees, that Anastasia was 
a nonpareil of virtue and beauty. Lord Stanhope, as a dwarf to the said 
giant, joked on his side, and was challenged for his pains. Lord Delawar 
was Lord Peterborough's second ; my lady miscarried ; the whole town 
divided into parties on this important point. Innumerable have been the 
disorders between the two sexes on so great an account, besides half the 
House of Peers being put under an arrest. By the providence of Heaven, 
and the wise cares of his Majesty, no bloodshed ensued. However, things 
are now tolerably accommodated ; and the fair lady rides through the town 
in triumph in the shining berlin of her hero, not to reckon the more solid 
advantage of 100/. a month, which 'tis said he allows her." 



296 MARRIAGES FROM THE STAGE. 

because the marriage was a happy one ; second, because all 
mention of it is omitted in the Peerages ; and third, because Lord 
Wharncliffe, in his edition of the Letters and Works of Lady 
Mary Worthy Montagu, above mentioned, designated Beard, we 
know not on what authority, as " a man of very indifferent 
character." Now it has ever been acknowledged by the common 
feelings of society, that the reputation of an honest man is the 
property of all who resemble him ; and therefore his lordship, as 
one of them, was bound either to own himself mistaken in this 
matter, or inform us upon what ground he differed with the 
received opinion. We never met with a mention of Beard, in 
which his character was spoken of at all, without its being accom- 
panied with high approbation, sometimes enthusiastic. We are 
not sure that, in the extracts we are about to make, we have not 
even missed the most glowing of the instances. The ensuing 
passage is from the Gentleman's Magazine : — 

"Feb. 5th, 1791. — In his 75th year, at Hampton, where he has resided 
since his retirement from the stage, John Beard, Esq., formerly one of the 
proprietors and acting-manager of Covent Garden Theatre, and long a very 
eminent and popular singer, till the loss of his hearing disqualified him 
from performing. His first marriage is thus recorded on a handsome pyra- 
midal monument in Pancras churchyard : — 

" ' Sacred to the remains of Lady Henrietta Beard, only daughter of 
James Earl of Waldegrave. In the year 1734 she was married to Lord 
Edward Herbert, second son to the Marquis of Powis ; by whom she had 
issue one daughter, Barbara, Countess of Powis. On the 8th of January, 
1738-9, she became the wife of Mr. John Beard, who during a happy union 
of fourteen years, tenderly loved her person, and admired her virtues ; who 
sincerely feels and laments her loss ; and must for ever revere her memory ; 
to which he consecrates this monument. 

" * Ob. xxxi. Maii, mdccliii, set. xxxvi. 

i( ' Requiescat in pace.' 

"By this lady's death, a jointure of 6007. a year devolved to Earl Powis. 
He married, secondly, a daughter of Mr. Rich, patentee of Covent Garden 
Theatre, whose sister married, 1. Mr. Morris, 2. Mr. Horsley, brother to 
the Bishop of St. David's. By the death of his father-in-law Mr. Rich, 
Mr. B. found himself in affluent circumstances, and his agreeable talents 
secured to him a circle of friends in his retirement. He has left legacies 
to the amount of 3,000/. ; which, considering his expenses in his house at 
Hampton, and his hospitable manner of living, with the settlement on his 
widow, is almost the whole of his fortune ; 100/. to the fund for decayed 
performers ; and to Mr. Hull, his intimate friend and acquaintance, 50/. to 
buy a ring in memory of him. The following epitaph, probably by Mr. 
Hull,* has been sent by a correspondent : — 

* It appears, from a subsequent passage, to have been written by Dr. 
Cousens, Rector of St. Gregory, Old Eish Street. 



MARRIAGES FROM THE STAGE* 297 

tl l Satire, be dumb ! nor dream the scenic art 
Must spoil the morals, and corrupt the heart. 

Here lies John Beard. 

Confess with pensive pause 

His modesty was great as our applause. 
Whence had that voice such magic to control ? 
*T was but the echo of a well-tun 'd soul : 
Through life his morals and his music ran 
In symphony, and spoke the virtuous man. 

Go, gentle harmonist ! our hopes approve, 
To meet and hear thy sacred songs above ; 
When taught by thee, the stage of life well trod, 
We rise to raptures round the throne of God.' " 

Dr. Burney, speaking of Beard as a rival singer, says — 

" Lowe had sometimes a subordinate part given him ; but with the 
finest tenor voice I ever heard in my life, for want of diligence and cultiva- 
tion, he never could be safely trusted with anything better than a ballad, 
which he constantly learned by the ear ; whereas Mr. Beard, with an inferior 
voice, constantly possessed the favour of the public, by his superior conduct, 
knowledge of music, and intelligence as an actor." * 

And in the General Biographical Dictionary is this cordial 
eulogy of him in all characters : — 

" He was long the deserved favourite of the public ; and w r hoever 
remembers the variety of his abilities, as actor and singer, in oratories and 
operas, both serious and comic, will testify to his having stood unrivalled 
in fame and excellence. This praise, however, great as it w^as, fell short of 
what his private merits acquired. He had one of the sincerest hearts joined 
to the most polished manners ; he was a most delightful companion, whether 
as host or guest. His time, his pen, and purse were devoted to the allevia- 
tion of every distress that fell within the compass of his power, and 
through life he fulfilled the relative duties of a son, brother, guardian, 
friend, and husband, with the most exemplary truth and tenderness." 

" We hope here be proofs." 

In short, we fear his lordship must have taken a certain 
moral criticism for granted, with which his great-grandmother 
favoured one of her correspondents ; — a perilous assumption at 
any time where Lady Mary is concerned, and the extremely 
vulgar style of which, in the present instance, one should think, 
might have warned off the better taste of the noble editor. The 
reader is here presented with it, as & just-bearable specimen of the 
way in which ladies of quality could write to one another in those 
days :— 

* History of Music, vol. iv. p. 667. 



298 MAERIAGES FROM THE STAGE. 

" Lady Townsliend has entertained the Bath with a variety of lively 
scenes ; and Lady Harriet Herbert furnished the tea-tables here with fresh 
tattle for this last fortnight. I was one of the first informed of her adven- 
ture by Lady Gage, who was told that morning by a priest, that she had 
desired him to marry her the next day to Beard, who sings in the farce at 
Drury Lane. He refused her that good office, and immediately told Lady 
Gage, who (having been unfortunate in her friends) was frighted in this 
affair and asked my advice. I told her honestly, that since the lady was 
capable of such amours, I did not doubt if this was broke off she would 
bestow her person and fortune on some hackney-coachman or chairman ; 
and that I really saw no method of saving her from ruin, and her family 
from dishonour, but by poisoning her, and offering to be at the expense of 
the arsenic, and even to administer it with my own hands if she would invite 
her to drink tea with her that evening. But on her not approving of that 
method, she sent to Lady Montacute, Mrs. Dunch, and all the relations 
within the reach of messengers. They carried Lady Harriet to Twicken- 
ham ; though I told them it was a bad air for girls. She is since returned 
to London, and some people believe her married ; others that he is too 
much intimidated by Mr. Walclegrave's threat to dare to go through the 
ceremony ; but the secret is now public, and in what manner it will con- 
clude I know not. Her relations have certainly no reason to be amazed at 
her constitution, but are violently surprised at the mixture of devotion 
that forces her to have recourse to the Church in her necessities ; which has 
not been the road taken by the matrons of the family. Such examples are 
very detrimental to our whole sex ; and are apt to influence the others into 
a belief that we are unfit to manage either liberty or money. These 
melancholy reflections make me incapable of a lively conclusion to my 
letter ; you must accept of a very sincere one in the assurance 

" That I am, dear madam, 

*' Inviolably yours," &c. 

We now come to one who was first a mistress, though subse- 
quently a wife — Lavinia Fenton, otherwise called Mrs. Beswick 
(Lavinia Fenton sounds like a stage-name). This actress was 
married in 1751 to Charles, third Duke of Bolton, on the decease 
of his Duchess, with whom he is said never to have cohabited. 
The Duke had had three children (all sons) by his mistress pre- 
viously, but he had none when she became his wife ; so that on 
his death in 1754, the title went to his brother.* He was then 
sixty-nine. He is described in his latter days by Horace Walpole, 
as an old beau, fair-complexionecl, in a white wig, gallanting the 
ladies about in public. The Duchess was the original " Polly" in 
the Beggars Opera, and so much the rage in that character, that 
it was probably thought a feat in the gallant Duke to carry her 
off the stage. Her good qualities appear to have fixed a passion, 

* In Sir Egerton Brydges' edition of Collins's Peerage, vol. ii. p. 386, 
published in the year 1812, is a list of the Duke's family by Mrs. Beswick. 



MABRIAGES FKOM THE STAGE. 299 

created perhaps by vanity. It is said, that on his once threaten- 
ing to leave her, she knelt and sang " Oh, ponder well " in a style 
so tender, that he had not the heart to do it. She survived her 
husband till 1760, after behaving, according to Walpole, not so 
well in the character of widow as of wife. " The famous Polly, 
Duchess of Bolton," says he, in one of his letters, " is dead, 
having, after a life of merit, relapsed into her Pollyhood. Two 
years ago, ill at Tonbridge, she pitched upon an Irish surgeon. 
When she was dying, this fellow sent for a lawyer to make her 
will ; but the man, finding who was to be her heir instead of her 
children, refused to draw it. The Court of Chancery did furnish 
one other, not quite so scrupulous, and her three sons have but a 
thousand pounds apiece; the surgeon about nine thousand."* 
This may be true, or it may be totally false. There is no trusting 
to these pieces of gossip; nor is any conclusion to be drawn 
from one part of a story, particularly a family one, till we know 
the other. Preposterous wills of all sorts are frequent; but " a 
life of merit," especially of kindly merit, is seldom closed by con- 
tradiction ; and supposing the statement to be true, the Duchess 
may have had other reasons for leaving no more to her children. 
They were the Duke's as well as hers, and may have been already 
provided for ; or she might have felt certain they would be so. 

In addition to the words " a life of merit," as affecting the 
Duchess of Bolton, a strong, though negative testimony, both to 
the good behaviour of Beard towards his wife, and of Lavinia 
Fenton towards the Duke, in one whose memory was so sensitive 
on the point, is observable in the very silence maintained respect- 
ing them by Horace Walpole in a list of names we shall give 
presently, connected with those of whom we are going to speak. 
The first of these is Mary Woffington, sister of the celebrated 
Margaret ; a name by which Horace's own pride was injured. 

"I have been unfortunate in my own family," says he, in 
another letter to the friend above mentioned; " my nephew, 
Captain Cholmondeley, has married a player's sister ; and I fear 
Lord Malpas " (his brother) " is on the brink of marriage with 
another girl of no fortune. Here is a ruined family ! their father 
totally undone, and all he has seized for debt." f Lavinia 
Fenton and Mary Woffington appear to have been married the 
same year. Mary was a player herself as well as a " player's 

* Letters to Sir Horace Mann, vol. iii. p. 403. 
f lb., vol. ii. p. 263. 



300 MAKKIAGES FKOM THE STAGE. 

sister; " at least, she is mentioned by a contemporary as having 
made her debut* Like her sister, she was handsome. The 
annoyance of her marriage to the husband's connexions must 
have been aggravated by Margaret's character, who, notwith- 
standing her talents and good qualities, had little delicacy. She 
was accustomed to preside at the Beef-steak Club in man's 
clothes ; and had been G-arrick's mistress. To crown all, her 
father had kept a huckster's shop. Captain Cholmondeley's 
fortunes, however, were mended after a fashion not uncommon to 
" ruined " young officers of noble families, by his " preferring an 
ecclesiastical to a military life." He obtained two church livings ; 
and to these contrived to add the lay office of Auditor- General of 
the Eevenues of America." f The Captain had a numerous 
progeny by his wife, and we hear no more of her. But there 
appears to have been much amiableness in his offspring, from 
whichever party derived, perhaps from both. One of the daughters 
was the Miss Cholmondeley, who was killed by the overturning 
of the Princess Charlotte's carriage in 1806 ; and another was 
Lady Bellingham, wife of Sir William, the late Baronet, who has 
left their sisterly attachment on record. There is no saying how 
much good and happiness a real bit of ]ove may have put into the 
family blood, from whatever source. Horace Walpole, with his 
fastidious celibacy (or whatever epithet might apply to it), left no 
children, merry or sad. 

But we now come to the first unhappy marriage of this sort, 
known to have existed, and against which Horace had reason to 
lift up his voice. This was the union of Lady Elizabeth Bertie, 
daughter of the Earl of Abingdon, with Gallini the dancer, after- 
wards " Sir John," as he called himself; though it does not 
appear that his poor papal title of " Knight of the Golden Spur " 
(however fit for his heel) was ever warranted to assume the 
English form of address. 

Gallini, though a good dancer, or teacher of dancing, and a 
prosperous lessee of the Hanover Square Booms, was nothing 
more. He was honest in his money dealings, and this appears 
to be the amount of his virtue. He was a shrewd man of the 
world, parsimonious, with nothing but a leg to go upon in matters 
of love ; and that never turns out to be sufficient " in the long 
run." The lady and he lived asunder many years, and died 

* Apology for the Life of George Anne Bellamy, vol. i. p. 44. 
f Collins s Peerage, as above, vol. iv. p. 34. 



MARBIAGES FROM THE STAGE. 801 

asunder; he in 1805, aged seventy-one, and she in 1804 at 
eighty ; so that, hesides other unsuitableness, she was eight years 
his senior. Gallini had been her dancing-master. Many ridi- 
culous stories were in circulation respecting the honours which he 
counted upon in consequence of his marriage with a noble family. 
He imagined it would confer on him the title of lord. When the 
marriage became the subject of conversation, Dr. Burney over- 
heard in the gangway of the Opera pit the following conversa- 
tion : — A lady said to another, "It is reported that one of the 
dancers is married to a woman of quality." Gallini, who hap- 
pened to be in the passage, said, " 'Lustrissima, son io " ("I am 
the man, my lady.") — " And who are you ? " demanded the lady. — 
" Eccellenza, mi chiamo Signor Gallini, esquoire." '* ("Your 
excellency, my name is Signor Gallini, esquoire") 

This was a bad business. Not such, though Horace Walpole 
was in despair about it, appears to have been the marriage of 
William O'Bkien, comedian (styled, in the Peerages, William 
O'Brien, Esq. of Stinsford, Dorsetshire) with Lady Susan Strange- 
ways (Fox), daughter of the Earl of Ilchester, in the year 1773. 
The outset of the affair, however, looked ill. The following is 
Walpole 's account of it : — 

" You will have heard of the sad misfortune that has happened to 
Lord Ilchester, by his daughter's marriage with O'Brien the actor. But 
perhaps you do not know the circumstances, and how much his grief must 
be aggravated by reflection on his own credulity and negligence. The 
affair has been in train for eighteen months. The swain had learned to 
counterfeit Lady Sarah Bunbury's hand so well, that in the country Lord 
Ilchester has himself delivered several of O'Brien's letters to Lady !Susan ; 
but it was not till about a week before the catastrophe that the family was 
apprised of the intrigue. Lord Cathcart went to Miss Beade's the pamtress. 
She said softly to him : ' My lord, there is a couple in the next room, that 
I am sure ought not to be together ; I wish your lordship would look in.' 
He did, shut the door again, and went and informed Lord Ilchester. Lady 
Susan was examined, flung herself at her father's feet, confessed all, vowed 
to break off — but — what a but ! — desired to see the loved object, and take a 
last leave. You will be amazed — even this was granted. The parting- 
scene happened the beginning of the week. On Friday she came of age, 
and on Saturday morning — instead of being under lock and key in the 
country — walked downstairs, took her footman, said she was going to 
breakfast with Lady Sarah ; but would call at Miss Beade's ; in the street, 
pretended to recollect a particular cap in which she was to be drawn, sent 
the footman back for it, whipped into a hackney-chair, was married at 
Covent Garden Church, and set out for Mr. O'Brien's villa at Dunstable. 

* General Biographial Dictionary, vol. xiv. p. 427. 



302 MARBIAGES FROM THE STAGE. 

My Lady — my Lady Hertford ! what say you to permitting young ladies to 
act plays, and go to painters by themselves ? 

Poor Lord Ilchester is almost distracted ; indeed it is the completion of 
disgrace — even a footman were preferable ; the publicity of the hero's pro- 
fession perpetuates the mortification. II ne sera pas milord tout comme un 
autre. I could not have believed that Lady Susan would have stooped so 
low. She may, however, still keep good company, and, say, Nos numeri 
sumus.' Lady Mary Duncan, Lady Caroline Adair, Lady Betty Gallini, — 
the shopkeepers of next age will be mighty well born."* 

The Lady Mary Duncan, whose surname is thus contemptu- 
ously mentioned, was daughter of the Earl of Thanet, and 
married a physician. The husband of Lady Caroline Adair, a 
daughter of the Earl of Albemarle, was a surgeon.-^ In a book, 
printed at Harrisburg, in America, in the year 1811, and 
entitled Memoirs of a Life chiefly passed in Pennsylvania within 
the last Sixty Years, &c, is an account of some inmates of a 
lodging-house at Philadelphia, among whom were Lady Susan 
O'Brien and her husband : — 

"Another," says the writer, "was Lady Susan O'Brien, not more dis- 
tinguished by her title, than by her husband who accompanied her, and had 
figured as a comedian on the London stage, in the time of Garrick, Mossop, 
and Barry. Although Churchill charges him with being an imitator of 
Woodward, he yet admits him to be a man of parts ; and he has been said 
to have surpassed all his contemporaries in the character of the fine gentle- 
man ; in his easy manner of treadiug the stage ; and particularly of 
drawing his sword, to which action he communicated a swiftness and a 
grace which Garrick imitated but could not equal. O'Brien is presented 
to my recollection as a man of the middle height, with a symmetrical form, 
rather light than athletic. Employed by the father to instruct Lady Susan in 
elocution, he taught her, it seems, that it was no sin to love ; for she 
became his wife, and as I have seen it mentioned in the Theatrical Mirror, 
obtained for him, through the interests of her family, a post in America. 
But what this post was, or where it located him, I never heard." J 

It thus appears that Lady Susan had at least love enough for 
her husband to accompany him to the other side of the globe ; 

* Letters to the Earl of Hertford, &c. p. 106. 

f The same, to whom an article is devoted in the Lounger's Common- 
Place Book. For some curious accounts of Lady Mary Duncan's eccen- 
tricities and generosity, see Madame d'Arblay's Memoirs of Dr. Burney. 
The best of the joke, as regards her marriage, was, that the connexions of 
her husband the physician were not only as respectable as himself, but pro- 
duced the famous naval warrior ; on occasion of whose victory over the 
Dutch, Lady Mary exclaimed, " Well, my honours, you see, are to come, 
after all, from the Duncans." 
% Memoirs of a Life, &c. p. 56. 



MARRIAGES FROM THE STAGE. 303 

nor from Churchill's account of O'Brien would it seem that he was 
unworthy of it : — 

" Shadows behind of Fcote and "Woodward came ; 
Wilkinson this, O'Brien was that name : 
Strange to relate, but wonderfully true, 
That even shadows have their shadows too. 
With not a single comic power endued, 
The first a mere mere mimic's mimic stood ; 
The last, by nature form'd to phase, who shows 
In Jonson's Stephen, which way genius grows, 
Self quite put off, affects, with too much art, 
To put on Woodward in each mingled part ; 
Adopts his shrug, his wiak, his stare ; nay, more, 
His Toice, and croaks ; for Woodward croak'd before. 
When a dull copier simple grace neglects, 
And rests his imitation in defects, 
We readily forgive ; but such rile arts 
Are double guilt in men of real parts."— Rosciad. 

O'Brien is here not only styled a man of parts, but is said to 
have shown " genius," and to have been " by nature formed to 
please;" which seems to imply that he was both well-looking 
and agreeable. And his very propensity, under these circum- 
stances, to imitate another rather than trust to his own powers, 
argues at least no superabundance of that metal upon which the 
faces of Irishmen have been complimented. 

The union which, of all those of professional origin, seemed 
to promise most for felicity, that of Elizabeth Linley with the 
subsequently famous Sheridan, is understood to have had but an 
ill result. The lady, daughter of Linley the composer, was 
beautiful, accomplished, and a fine singer ; the gentleman, a wit, 
a man of courage, and with, apparently, a bright and prosperous 
life before him. He had fought for her with a rival, under circum- 
stances of romantic valour ; and no one appeared every way so fit 
to carry off the warbling beauty, since he could alike protect her 
with the sword, and write songs fit for her to warble. But 
Sheridan, with all his talents, was not provident enough to save 
a wife from ordinary disquietudes, nor (for aught that has 
appeared) had he steadiness of heart enough to make her happy 
in spite of them ; and Miss Linley, besides the vanity perhaps 
natural to a flattered beauty, and therefore a craving for admira- 
tion, wanted economy herself, and had a double portion of sensi- 
bility. It is to be doubted, whether the author of the Rivals and 
the School for Scandal possessed the sentiment of love in any 



304 MARRIAGES FROM THE STAGE. 

proportion to the animal passion of it. An harmonious nature 
probably left no sympathy out of the composition of his wife. 
The result, chiefly as it affected their fortunes, has been intimated 
by Madame d'Arblay in very solemn, head-shaking style. The 
less bounded sympathy of a poet (Thomas Moore) has, if we are 
not mistaken, delicately touched upon the remainder of the story 
somewhere ; but we cannot find the passage, and it is not material 
to the purpose before us. 

It was looked upon, no doubt, as a far less daring thing to 
take a wife from the concert-room than the theatre, especially as 
Miss Linley had not long been in it, and the precedent of 
Anastasia Robinson had been redeemed by the grace and propriety 
of her manners. But a female was now to appear on the stage, 
and in comedy too, who by her singular fitness for personating 
the character of a gentlewoman, was justly accorded the rank of 
one by common consent ; — so much so, that her marriage into 
high life seems to have taken off the worst part of the opprobrium 
from all similar unions in future. We allude to Elizabeth 
Farren, who, in the year 1797, upon the death of his first 
Countess, was married to Edward, Earl of Derby, father of the 
present Earl. His. lordship was neither young nor handsome ; 
the lady was prudent ; quietly transferred her elegant manners 
from the stage to the drawing-room, and the public heard no more 
of her. 

This sensible example on the part of the lady was followed 
by those whom it had probably assisted towards the like exalta- 
tion. In 1807, Louisa Brunton was married to the late Earl 
Craven, by whom she was mother to the present; and like Miss 
Farren she disappeared into private life. We recollect her as 
being what is called a fine woman, and one that had lady-like 
manners, carried to a pitch of fashionable indifference. She 
would sometimes, for instance, twist about a leaf, or bit of thread, 
between her lips while speaking, by way of evincing her natural- 
ness, or nonchalance. She was sister of the respectable actor of 
that name, and aunt of Mrs. Yates, the admirable performer of 
Vlctorine. 

In the same year, Miss Searle (we know not her Christian 
name, which is a pity, considering that she was one of the delights 
of our boyish eyes) became the wife of Robert Heathcote, Esq., 
brother of Sir Gilbert ; and vanished like her predecessors. She 
was a dancer, but of great elegance, with a rare look of lady-like 
self-possession, which she contrived to preserve without injuring 



MARRIAGES FROM THE STAGE, 305 

a certain air of enjoyment fitting for the dance. It was this 
union that captivated us. 

The Beggars' Opera now put a coronet on the brows of another 
Polly : — at least, this character, we believe, w T as the one which 
chiefly brought forward the gentle attractions of Mary Catherine 
Bolton, called also Polly Bolton, who, in 1813, became the wife 
of Lord Thurlow, nephew of the first Lord Thurlow the judge, 
and what is more, a true poet, notwithstanding the fantastical 
things he mixed up with his poetry. There are passages in them 
of the right inspired sort — remote in the fancy, yet close to feel- 
ing, — and worthy to stand in the first rank of modern genius. 
We fear he made but too poetical a consort, richer in the article 
of mind than money ; but if he had a poet's kindness, and her 
ladyship heart enough to understand him (as her ]ook promised), 
she may still have been happy. We know nothing further of his 
lordship or his marriage, except that the present lord is the result. 

We have no records before us to show when Mr. Beecher, a 
gentleman of fortune, married the celebrated tragic actress, Miss 
O'Neil ; nor when Mr. Bradshaw, another, married Miss Tree, 
one of the truest of the representatives of Shakspeare's gentler 
heroines, albeit there was something a little fastidious in her 
countenance. The latest of these unions, Mrs. Coutts's marriage 
to the Duke of St. Albans, came the first under our notice ; and 
therefore we shall now conclude with some general remarks on 
the spirit of this custom of wedding with the stage, and the light 
in which it ought to be regarded. 

And this simply concentrates itself, we conceive, into one 
point ; which is, that the theatrical world no more renders a 
person unworthy of the highest and happiest fortune, if the in- 
dividual has been unspoilt by it, than the world of fashion does.. 
See what has transpired in the course of this article, respecting 
people of fashion, and let any one ask himself whether it would 
be fairer to say, " Don't take a wife or husband from the stage," 
than " Don't take one from the world of fashion." Mrs. Brad- 
shaw was of unexceptionable character ; Lady Peterborough was 
unexceptionable ; Beard was unexceptionable ; so was O'Brien, 
for aught we know to the contrary ; so was Miss Linley, Miss 
Farren, Miss Brunton, Miss Searle, Miss Bolton, Miss O'Neil, 
Miss Tree. Keally the stage, instead of a sorry figure on these 
occasions, presents, upon the whole, an excellent one ; and con- 
sidering its comparative smallness, and inferior education, may 
put its fashionable friend on the defensive ! 

20 



306 MARRIAGES FROM THE STAGE. 

We have seen what sort of a character for "moral restraint H 
Lord Peterborough had, who, with all his valour, was so frightened 
at the idea of introducing an honest gentlewoman into the great 
world ! and yet this was a world which would have made him 
laugh in your teeth, if you had given it credit for any one virtue ! 
But so enormous was the honour to be bestowed on her by giving 
her his name, that he found it hardly endurable to think of. He 
postponed it till he stood between heaven and earth, dying, and 
when it just became possible to see such distinctions in their true 
light ; an Earl being, after all, " a little lower than the angels ! " 
One of Lord Peterborough's grand-aunts was the Duchess of 
Norfolk, who caused so much scandal in the year 1700, and who 
after her divorce married Sir John Germain ; a man so ignorant, 
that it was a joke against him in the fashionable world to pretend 
that he left a legacy to Sir Matthew Decker, as believing him to 
be the author of St. Matthew's Gospel ! 

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is scandalized at the marriage 
of Lady Henrietta Herbert with Beard ; and she contrives that 
the question shall be begged against the bridegroom by her very 
descendant. But what sort of a life was Lady Mary's ! and how 
must the noble editor have felt in recording it ? What sort of 
language did she use ? and what did she really think of these 
vivacities of temperament in other people and in herself, which 
she assumes in the case of Lady Henrietta, and only thinks ob- 
jectionable because legalized with an actor ? Here's a chaos of 
conventional morality! But "Lady Mary," it may be said, was 
an exception ; she was a genius, flighty, and " all that." Well, 
her father was a man of pleasure ; his successor in the Dukedom 
of Kingston another, or an imbecile ; and her own son another, 
eccentric beyond herself. And as to her husband's relatives, the 
Montagues (with no disparagement to the better part of them), 
see what is said of them in Pepys, in Grammont, &c, down to the 
times of " Jemmy Twitcher " and Miss Ray. "Jemmy Twit- 
cher " is not a nickname given on the stage in a farce. It is one 
of the numerous sallies of the anti-theatrical tongue of fashion. 
" Jemmy Twitcher " was John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich, 
and First Lord of the Admiralty, famous for having a mistress 
who did not love him, and for playing the kettle-drum. Com- 
pare him with any given player of kettle-drums in an orchestra, 
who can get a living by it, and has a mistress that loves him. 
Which of the two has the right to look down on the other ? 

We do not wish to be getting scandalous, even retrospectively. 



MARRIAGES FROM THE STAGE. 307 

Our sole object is to admonish, scandal, and vindicate justice. 
Lady Henrietta Herbert's own family, the Waldegraves, produced 
excellent people, nor do we mean to blame them for having had 
natural children among their ancestors ; and yet even a conven- 
tional moralist, standing up for his principles, is bound to ask, 
why an honest player was to be despised by them, while they 
thought it an honour to be descended from the illegitimate off- 
spring of princes and ministers '? Lady Henrietta's name came 
to her from her grandmother Henrietta Churchill, daughter of 
James the Second by the sister of the famous Duke of Marl- 
borough ; which great General, by the way, is understood to have 
owed his first advancement in life to the favours of the Duchess 
of Cleveland, mistress of James's brother. On whichever side 
one turns in the great world, one meets with lessons against the 
stone-throwers among them. The " glass-houses " are innumer- 
able. It is a city of fragility ; and the theatres, we must say, 
teaching the humanities of Shakspeare, cut a solid figure in the 
perspective. We do not wonder at the " great world," nor blame 
it, as long as it is considerate to others. Its faults are among 
the natural consequences of the refinement of civilization ; and 
the glass, it is to be hoped, will consolidate itself somehow or 
other into a nobler material. But we must proceed with our 
case. 

Poor flimsy, witty, wise, foolish, aristocratical, old-bachelor 
Horace \Yalpole is shocked at his nephew marrying an actress 
who brought him good children, and at Lady Susan Fox's running 
away with William O'Brien, "by nature formed to please." 
Why, the Foxes themselves, nobly as they have been allied, and 
higher as their blood has been carried by intellect, originated in a 
singing-boy (Stephen Fox) ; and who that loves the open nature 
of Charles Fox, or the indulgent paternity of his father, or the 
many admirable qualities of the late Lord Holland, or any other 
real virtues in this or any family in high life, would willingly 
rake up whatsoever faults might be found mixed with them, to the 
chance of being considered a hypocrite and a fop, if such a man 
as Horace Walpole would but leave other people's virtues alone, 
and not take up a baton sinister to lay it over the shoulders of the 
untitled ? Horace's own friends and relations, including his 
father and mother, were tattled of in their day, in connexion with 
all sorts of moral offences, gallantry in particular. Divorces and 
natural children, and open scandal, were rife among them. It 
was doubted by some, whether Horace himself was his father's 



308 MAKRIAGES FROM THE STAGE* 

own son ! Yet we do not find the prince of gossips crying out 
against these things with the grief and agitation that afflict him 
at an honest marriage with the green-room. He makes pastime 
of them with his correspondents, — mere " fun and drollery." 
But in an actress ! or in a Duchess who has been an actress ! 
That he calls relapsing into her " Pollyhood." 

Swift, on the other hand, did not wait for Duchesses to have 
been actresses, in order to think they might rank among the 
lowest of the sex. He speaks in one of his letters, of having 
been at a party the night before, where he saw my lady this and 
that, the "Duchess" of something, and "other drabs!''' Nay, 
Horace himself might have said this, when in another humour ; 
but here is one of the preposterous assumptions of the "great 
world," or rather the very heart of its mystery; — it is to be 
allowed to rail at itself, as much as it will, and for all sorts of 
basenesses, while simply to be the great world gives it a virtue 
above virtue, which no plebeian goodness is to think of ap- 
proaching. 

Since Walpole's time, the spread of education, and the general 
rise of most ranks in knowledge (for the highest, with sullen folly, 
seem to think any addition to their stock unnecessary), have 
rendered it almost as ridiculous to make this sort of lamentation 
over a marriage with the green-room, as it would be to think of 
showing anything but respect to one with the learned professions. 
The Pepyses and Halfords have delivered " the faculty" from the 
" prohibited degrees ;" and few would be surprised nowadays, at 
hearing that a Lawrence or a Carlisle had married the daughter 
of a nobleman. Almost as little does any one think of the Lady 
Derbys and Cravens with a feeling of levity or surprise. The 
staid conduct and previous elegance of a succession of coroneted 
actresses has tranquilly displaced the old barriers, which it shook 
the poor fashionable world to the soul to see touched ; and by one 
of those curious compromises with morality, which always existed 
in that quarter, and betrayed its want of dignity, the riches and 
high title of the great banker's widow have strengthened rather 
than diminished the effect of unequivocal virtue itself, and left the 
stage in possession of the most unbounded rights of expectation. 
When an actress of celebrity now marries, the surprise of the 
public is, that she puts up with a private gentleman. Wealth is 
power, and power is everything with the gratuitously meritorious. 
It is not indeed to be despised by anybody, inasmuch as it is 
substantial and effective ; aud hence the delusion of those who, 



MARRIAGES FROM THE STAGE. 309 

because they are in possession of the remains of it, fancy they 
inherit it for ever, undiminished by the encroachments of the 
power derived from that very knowledge which, after all, is the 
only basis of their own, and which is sliding from under their 
proud and careless feet. Some real superiority, was it only in 
bodily strength or cunning, was the first exaltation of men above 
their fellows. The advantages derived from it gradually secured 
to them those of the superiority of knowledge ; and a feeling has 
been increasing of later years, that knowledge and accomplish- 
ments, and the moral graces that attend them, now make the 
only real difference between the pretensions of decent people. 
" The shopkeepers of the next age," says Horace Walpole, in a 
sneer which now recoils on his memory, " will be mightily well 
born." They are better than that ; — they are mightily well 
educated ; — that is to say, their children are brought up to be as 
accomplished and well behaved as those of their quondam supe- 
riors ; and hence has arisen a change in society, which, if it has 
not yet completed the justice to be done in like manner to all 
classes (far, God knows, from it !), has at any rate put an end to 
the fine marriageable distinctions between a gentlewoman off the 
stage, whose attractions lie in the tombs of her ancestors, and a 
gentlewoman on it who delights the eyes and understandings of 
thousands. The fair fames of the Derby s and Cravens, and the 
novels of Gore and Blessington, have avenged the vulgar insults 
offered to the sisters of the stage by the demireps of the days of 
Walpole and Montagu.* 

* By a singular forgetfulness we have omitted one name in our list, 
well known in the annals of beauty and a trying life. But the omission is 
as well ; considering that society is not yet in a condition to do thorough 
justice to the victims of its perplexities. 



( 310 ) 



LADY MAM WORTLEY MONTAGU : 
AN ACCOUNT OF HER LIFE AND WRITINGS.* 

A PARTY OF WITS AND BEAUTIES — LADY LOUISA STUART'S INTRODUCTORY 

ANECDOTES LADY MARY'S RECOMMENDATION RESPECTING MARRIAGE 

HER EARLY LIFE AND STUDIES — MARRIES MR. WORTLEY — THE 

UNION NOT HAPPY — HER INTRODUCTION AT COURT, AND CURIOUS 

ADVENTURE THERE WITH MR. CRAGGS ACCOMPANIES HER HUSBAND 

IN HIS EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE — EXCELLENCE OF HER LETTERS 

FROM TURKEY PORTRAITS OF HER CONJUGAL INSIGNIFICANCE OF 

MR. WORTLEY POPE'S UNFORTUNATE PASSION DISCUSSED — LADY 

MARY THE INTRODUCER OF INOCULATION INTO ENGLAND — SHE 
SEPARATES FROM MR. WORTLEY, AND RESIDES ABROAD FOR TWENTY- 
TWO YEARS — REASON OF THAT SOJOURN — HER ADDICTION TO SCANDAL 

— MORALITY OF THAT DAY QUESTION FOR MORAL PROGRESS — 

ALLEGED CONDUCT OF LADY MARY ABROAD HER RETURN TO HER 

NATIVE COUNTRY— HER LAST DAYS, AND CURIOUS ESTABLISHMENT 

CHARACTER OF WORTLEY, JUN. SPECIMEN OF LADY MARY'S WIT 

AND GOOD WRITING ; AND SUMMARY OF HER CHARACTER. 

To have a new edition of " Lady Mary," with new particulars of 
her life, new letters, and a new portrait, is like seeing her come 
back again in jwojwid persona, together with the circles in which 
she nourished. We perceive a rustling of hoop-petticoats about 
us, a fluttering of fans, an obeisance of perukes. We behold her 
in the bloom of her ascendancy, the most prominent object in a 
party of wits and beauties, talking perhaps with Prior or with 
Congreve, and putting him to all his resources of repartee. The 
conversation would be thought a little "bold" for these times. 
Miss Howe and Miss Bicknell, nevertheless, are laughing out- 
right ; my Lady Winchelsea is smiling, and so is Mrs. Howard, 
for all her staid eyes. Steele, pretending not to see Addison, is 
about to say something which shall turn the equivoque into an 
elegance, comfortable to all parties ; Addison is pretending not 
to hear ; and Pope, with his lean earnest face and fine eyes, is 
standing behind her ladyship's chair, too happy to be able to 
screen his person and to have the advantage of her in point of 

* From the Westminster Feviciv, for 1837. Occasioned by Lord 
WharnclinVs edition of her Letters, &c, 



HER LIFE AND WRITINGS. 311 

height ; while he is meditating to whisper a sentence in her ear, 
fervid with passion she laughs at. 

Alas ! that neither he nor she should become the happier for 
all this drawing-room delight ; that she, by her sarcasm and 
self-committals, or whatever it was, should be driven into a long 
exile ; and that he, from the most loving of her flatterers, should 
become the bitterest of her denouncers, and render his hatred 
as well as love immortal ! And yet why lament ? All who have 
any solid pretensions make out their case somehow, both of 
repute and consolation. The little, crooked, despised person 
became the " prince of the poets of his time," acknowledged by 
all, and nursed by many affections instead of one ; and the over- 
flattered and presumptuous fine lady— the Duke's daughter, wit, 
and beauty — forced upon solitude and self-reflection, found less 
uneasy resources in books and gardens, and the love of a daughter 
of her own ; besides knowing that she should leave writings 
behind her admired by all the world, and the reputation of a bene- 
factress of her species. 

The present edition of her ladyship's works is by far the 
best that has appeared, for it contains additional information 
respecting herself, and a great deal of new matter from her pen, 
besides correcting inaccuracies and supplying omitted names. 
Many letters are brought forward in which the former series was 
deficient ; and we have entirely new sets addressed to the 
Countesses of Pomfret and Oxford and Sir James Stuart and 
his lady, besides a paper On the State of Parties, at the Accession 
of George the First, by Mr. Wortley ; An Account of the Court 
at the same period, by Lady Mary herself; a curious Appendix 
respecting an extraordinary charge against her ; and a very inter- 
esting set of Introductory Anecdotes, written, as a contemporary 
informs the public, by her grand-daughter, Lady Louisa Stuart, 
daughter of George the Third's first favourite, the Earl of Bute ; 
a lady who has taken up her pen in her eightieth year, as if on 
purpose to give us a pleasing verification of what the noble 
editor thinks of her — namely, that " a ray of Lady Mary's talent 
has fallen upon one of her descendants." Till we received this 
information from our contemporary, we fancied that the anec- 
dotes were the production of the editor's cousin, Dr. Corbett, 
of whom he has shown a handsome anxiety to let us know that 
we are mainly indebted to him for the appearance of the edition. 
We must also not omit noticing, that the volumes, besides a new 
portrait of Lady Mary in her Eastern costume, contain those of 



812 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU : 

Wortley her husband ; of his sister Miss Wortley ; of Wortley, 
junior, with his flighty eyes, dressed like a Turk ; aud of her 
ladyship's daughter, the Countess of Bute, looking singularly old 
and plain, after her dashing young mother in the frontispiece. 

We are sorry we cannot but add, that the edition, with all 
this new interest, is not as complete, accurate, or well arranged 
as it might have been, and that many notes are still wanting, 
while some might have been spared ; as the information respect- 
ing Smollett for instance (vol. iii. p. 106), and the slur (vol. ii. 
p. 218) on the character of Beard the singer, which, from all we 
ever read of him, we believe to be the reverse of fact. It would 
also have been as well if the fair and venerable writer of the 
anecdotes had spared, in Christian charity, and especially in a 
set of remarks so considerate to the fame of one lady, the 
reproaches intimated against another in page 51 ; a woman who 
was certainly not less conscientious than her ladyship's ancestor, 
whether her opinions were right or wrong, and who suffered 
severely for those opinions, and was born during a period of 
conflicting principles. It is curious to see how difficult it is for 
the most estimable individuals in high life to avoid giving way to 
a spirit of scandal and sarcasm — so beset are they with occasions 
for it. But above all, in this collection of the " Works " of 
Lady Mary, what has become of the " Treatise " which Spence 
mentions as existing on two very curious subjects, and which, 
from the silence of the noble editor, we may suppose to be exist- 
ing still? "It was from the custom of the Turks," said her 
ladyship in a conversation with Spence, " that I first thought of 
a septennial bill for the benefit of married people, and of the 
advantages that might arise from our wives having no portions " — 
Spence's Anecdotes (Singer's edition, p. 231). Upon which, saith 
the ingenuous Spence, "that lady's little treatise upon these two 
subjects is very prettily written, and has very uncommon argu- 
ments in it. She is very strenuous for both these tenets, — that 
every married person should have the liberty of declaring every 
seventh year, whether we choose to continue to live together in 
that state for another seven years, or not : and she also argues, 
that if women had nothing but their own good qualities and merit 
to recommend them, it would make them more virtuous, and 
their husbands more happy, than in the present marketing-way 
among us. She seems very earnest and serious on the subject, 
and wishes the legislature would take it under their considera- 
tion, and regulate those two points by her system." — Ibid. Now, 



HER LIFE AND WRITINGS. 313 

why, in these legislative times, should we miss this very legisla- 
tive history treatise, especially upon a subject in which the 
ladies are so much considered, upon which they are not soon 
Jikely to have so plain-spoken an advocate ? Finally, it would 
have completed the rich look of the edition, and its retrospective 
merits compared with others, if it had included Dallaway's two 
portraits of Lady Mary, one in her girlhood, and the other after 
Sir 'Godfrey Kneller, together with the fac- similes he gave of the 
handwritings of herself and Pope, Fielding, and Addison, &c. 
An edition intended to be final can hardly be too comprehensive. 
Even the whole of the little reports of conversation in Spence 
should have been met with ; and still more desirable was the 
account given of Lady Mary on her return to England, by Mrs. 
Montagu, since it fills up an obvious gap, and one that demands 
supply. It shall be furnished in the course of the present article. 
In fact, as the best means of satisfying the curiosity newly excited 
in the public by the appearance of these volumes, we purpose to 
throw the chief part of the article into a biographical shape, — 
thus affording the most complete and regular account of this 
extraordinary woman which, after all, has yet been furnished, 
and bringing into play, as we go, the information newly contri- 
buted, and the reflections to which it gives rise. At the end of 
it we shall extract some of the choicest morsels we can find of 
her wit and good sense ; and conclude with what appears to us 
to be an impartial summary of her character, both as a writer 
and a woman. 

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, eldest daughter of Evelyn 
Pierrepont, then Earl of Kingston, afterwards Marquis of 
Dorchester and Duke of Kingston ; and of Lady Mary Fielding, 
daughter of William the third Earl of Denbigh, was born at 
Thorseby, in Nottinghamshire, in the year 1690. She had two 
sisters by the same parents (for the Duke had two other daughters 
by a second wife), and one brother, who died during his father's 
lifetime, and whose son became second and last Duke of Kingston. 
One of the sisters married John Earl of Gower, and the other 
John Earl of Mar ; which latter is the one to whom she addressed 
some of her best letters. Both on father's and mother's side, 
Lady Mary came of a stirring race ; for the Pierreponts and 
Fieldings took active parts in the civil war, and under painful 
circumstances of family divisions, two brothers among the former 
having chosen different sides ; and among the latter, a father and 
§on. But there was genius as well as activity in her blood, The 



314 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU : 

mother of Beaumont the dramatist was a Pierrepont ; and, 
curiously enough, Lady Mary, in another Beaumont of Coleorton 
(the same stock), had a common ancestor with Villiers, the witty 
Duke of Buckingham, who was her great-uncle. The noble editor 
does not mention these particulars ; but surely they are not 
uninteresting, considering the names concerned, particularly in 
connection with such a woman. Since the alarming discovery of 
the Frenchman, that, at a certain remove, every individual of a 
nation is related to everybody else (so that any one who can 
trace his family at all, may select the Duke or Prince he chooses 
to be descended from), it will produce a little closer satisfaction to 
notice the near relationship between Lady Mary and Henry Field- 
ing, who was her second-cousin. It is not so pleasant to observe 
the distance, which circumstances doubtless, rather than her own 
inclination, kept up between them ; the author of Tom Jones, 
though a friend of hers, and treated as such, still being a sort of 
humble one, and addressing her in his letters with the greatest 
ceremony. It is true, this was more in the taste of the age than 
it is at present ; but Fielding was the poor son of the poor son 
of a younger brother ; while she, though his cousin by the 
mother's side, was a Duke's daughter. It is lucky that poverty 
did not separate them much farther. It was told the other day 
of the late Duke of Norfolk, that he proposed to give a dinner to 
all the Howards he could bring together, who were lineally 
descended from " Jockey of Norfolk," the first Duke ; but after 
finding (if we are not mistaken) several hundreds, they came 
upon him by such shoals, out of lanes and alleys, and all sorts of 
homely modes of life, that he was fain to back in alarm out of his 
project. 

The Fieldings, till Henry came up to mend the reputation, 
were not thought very clever. Lady Mary says they were all 
called " fair and foolish ! " This may account for an anecdote 
reported of the great novelist — that being asked by the then 
Earl of Denbigh, how he came to write Fielding with the i first, 
when the Earl and the rest of his kindred wrote it with the e, he 
said he really could not inform his lordship, unless it was that he 
was the first of the family that knew how to spell. 

The last Duke of Kingston, who appears to have been a kind 
but weak man, was the subject of town-talk in connection with 
his widow, Miss Chudleigh, who, before she married him, had 
become the wife, in private, of the Hon. Augustus Hervey, after- 
wards Earl of Bristol, The Pierrepont family is now represented 



HER LIFE AND WRITINGS. 315 

by Earl Manvers, whose ancestor, Mr. Meadows, married his 
grace's sister and heir, Lady Frances. But as a Wortley, Lady 
Mary has numerous descendants living, through the Earl of Bute, 
who married her daughter ; and it is pleasant to see those of 
opposite parties contributing to the success of her works. Her 
ladyship was a Whig ; but Lord Wharncliffe, a Tory, is proud to 
be her editor, and to style himself in the title-page, her great- 
grandson ; and in the same degree of relationship stands Lord 
Dudley Stuart, a Liberal, to whom the noble editor pays his 
acknowledgments for the free use of letters and papers. The 
wife of Lord Dudley is the daughter of the Prince of Canino, 
Lucien Bonaparte. Here is a curious mixture of bloods ! 
Yillierses, Beaumonts, Lady Marys, Stuarts, and Bonapartes ! 
But in comes the disenchanting Frenchman, and scatters the 
colours of heraldry wide as heaven does the flowers, or as gules 
and azure are scattered in the cheeks and eyes of bumpkins. 

At four years of age, our heroine lost her mother, a special 
misfortune most probably in her case ; for a certain habitual want 
of feminine self-restraint was the cause of much from which she 
afterwards suffered. Her grandmother, however, a very sensible 
woman, seems to have done something towards supplying the 
maternal duties. Lady Mary's mother, grandmother, and herself, 
had the same nurse, who did her best to render one of them, and 
probably all three, weak and superstitious ; yet all seem to have 
escaped the infection ; though why such intelligent women retained 
her in the family, we are not told. Lady Mary compares her 
father and mother to Sir Thomas and Lady Grandison, in 
Richardson's novel. This paints their characters at once ; the 
lady a most excellent woman, at once reasonable and cordial ; the 
gentleman a very disagreeable person, between a formalist and a 
man of pleasure, exacting submission from others, practising none 
himself, and letting most matters take their course as long as 
they did not interfere with his ease. Accordingly, having pro- 
vided his son with a teacher of languages, he left the boy to his 
tutor, and his daughter to her nurse and governess ; and Lady 
Mary's understanding being so much better than that of her in- 
structress, scrambled, as it were, by the side of her brother's 
advantages, and bore away some of his Latin, and perhaps a 
smattering of Greek ; and this appears to be the amount of the 
classical education which, Dr. Dallaway says, her father gave her. 
Lady Mary's own account of her education was, that it was " one 
of the wprst in the world, being exactly the same as Clarissa 



316 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU 






Harlowe's." The very fact, however, of its being one of the 
worst, contributed, under the circumstances, to render it one of 
the best, with the exception of something more feminine. The 
understanding, discovering its strength by the weakness which it 
detected in others, threw off its trammels, and secured itself a 
healthier growth ; and to this vindication of its natural inde- 
pendence, and the child's unusual and miscellaneous reading, 
may be traced that unflinching good sense, and toleration of other 
creeds and opinions, for which the author of the letters became 
remarkable. 

But if Lady Mary's father was not of a nature to be very 
fond of her, or do her much good, he could be very proud of her, 
and help to excite her vanity. The effect of the following well- 
painted scene probably remained with her for life, though, 
to a mind like hers, not without its good as well as evil : 

" As a leader of the fashionable world, and a strenuous Whig in party, 
he (Lord Kingston) of course belonged to the Kit-Kat Club. One day, at 
a meeting to choose toasts for the year, a whim seized him to nominate her, 
then not eight years old, a candidate ; alleging that she was far prettier 
than any lady on the list. The other members demurred, because the rules 
of the Club forbade them to elect a beauty whom they had never seen. 
1 Then yon shall see her ! ' cried he ; and in the gaiety of the moment, sent 
orders home to have her finely dressed, and brought to him at the tavern ; 
where she Avas received with acclamations, her claim unanimously allowed, 
her health drank by every one present, and her name engraved, in due form, 
upon a drinking-glass. The company consisted of some of the most eminent 
men in England ; she went from the lap of one poet, or patriot, or states- 
man, to the arms of another ; was feasted with sweetmeats, overwhelmed 
with caresses, and, what perhaps pleased her better than either, heard her 
wit and beauty loudly extolled on every side. Pleasure, she said, was too 
poor a word to express her sensations : they amounted to ecstasy. Never 
again, throughout her whole future life, did she pass so happy a day. Nor 
indeed could she : for the love of admiration, which this scene was calcu- 
lated to excite or increase, could never again be so fully gratified ; there is 
always some alloying ingredient in the cup, some drawback upon the 
triumphs of grown people. Her father carried on the frolic, and, w r e may 
conclude, confirmed the taste, by giving her a picture painted for the club- 
room, that she might be enrolled a regular toast." — p. 5. 

Our little woman of letters (for such she had now been regu- 
larly installed) read all the books she could lay her hands on, — 
poetry, philosophy, romances. She was so fond of the romances 
of the old French school, Cleopatra, Cassandra, &c, that in a 
blank page in one of them (the Astrea), she had written " in her 
fairest youthful hand, the names and characteristic qualities of 
the chief personages, "-.-as, " the beautiful Diana, the volatile- 



HEE LIFE AND WHITINGS. 817 

Climene, the melancholy Doris," &c, to the amount of two long 
columns. Her first known poetic effusion, agreeably to this taste, 
which delighted in mixing up the classics with love, was an 
Epistle from Julia to Ovid, which she wrote at the age of twelve. 
It exhibits so nice an apprehension of the reigning melody in 
verse, and the complimentary cant of gallantry, that if the 
authoress at twelve had not probably been as matured in her 
faculties as most young ladies at twenty, she might be suspected 
of having given it some after-touches : — 

" Are love and power incapable to meet ? 
And must they all be wretched who are great ? 
Enslaved by titles, and by forms confined, 
For wretched victims to the state design'd ? 



" O love ! thou pleasure never dearly bought ; 
Whose joys exceed the very lover's thought ; 
Of that soft passion, when tjgu teach the art, 

(she is here turning from love to her lover) 

" In gentle sounds it steals into the heart ; 
With such sweet magic does the soul surprise, 
'T is only taught us better by your eves." 

This is exactly the style in which Dry den would have 
addressed Lady Castlemain, or Garth (one of the Kit-Kat Club) 
have written verses to her own beauty on the drinking-glasses. 
Perhaps in selecting the daughter of Augustus for her heroine, 
she had an eye to her own rank ; and the " Ovid " she thought 
of may have been one of the Club, — great versifiers of him and 
his epistles. 

We next find her, at the age of fourteen, complaining that truth 
is not to be found either in courts or in " sanctuaries." At fifteen 
she has a project of an English nunnery ! and at twenty she trans- 
lates the austere Epictetus, no doubt from the Latin version, under 
the eye of her friend, Bishop Burnet. Writing to her daughter, 
Lady Bute, forty years afterwards, she says of the nunnery 
project, in allusion to the commendation of such a plan by 
Richardson : — 

"It was a favourite scheme of mine when I was fifteen ; and had I 
then been mistress of an independent fortune, I would certainly have 
executed it, and elected myself lady- abbess. There would you and your 
ten children have been lost for ever." 



318 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU *. 

And in a subsequent letter she observes, — 

" Lady Stafford (who knew me better than anybody else in the world, 
both from her own just discernment, and my heart being ever as open to 
her as myself ) used to tell me, that my true vocation was a monastery ; 
and I now find, by experience, more sincere pleasure with my books and 
garden, than all the flutter of a court could give me." 

That may be, and yet the threatened non-existence of poor 
Lady Bute and her ten children have been a non-sequitur. Lady 
Stafford was the daughter of the famous Count de Grammont and 
la belle Hamilton; and her ladyship, backed also by "experi- 
ence," and the perusal of Boccaccio, another lover of books and 
gardens, might have told her friend, that by a vocation for a 
nunnery, she certainly did not mean a nunnery of a very rigid 
order. The love of books and gardens, of influence in childhood, 
and repose in old age, most assuredly does not imply an indiffer- 
ence to any other pleasure in due season ; nor did Lady Mary's 
monastic tendencies end in proving that it did. She became, 
in fact, as pretty an inhabitant of Rabelais' Abbey of the 
Thelemites as will and pleasure could desire. 

Nevertheless, we cannot help thinking, that there was one 
period of her life, now approaching, at which it depended upon the 
turn of a die, whether our heroine's vivacities might not all have 
compressed themselves, not indeed into a lady-abbess, but into a 
very good lady- wife. It really does seem to us that she only 
required to be a little better matched, in order to have met the 
comforts, or mutual good will and humanities of the wedded life 
more than half way ; and that if the chief causes of a separation 
lay finally at her door (as they probably did), they began with the 
impatience and inattention of the party who has the staider 
repute. 

Among the early female friends of Lady Mary was Miss, or 
(as it was then the custom to call unmarried ladies) Mrs. Anne 
Wortley, sister of Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu, whose father, 
Sidney, one of the sons of the well-known Earl of Sandwich 
(Pepys' hero), had added the name of Wortley to that of 
Montagu, in consequence of his marriage with an heiress. 
Edward Wortley, who was not a man of gallantry, and had 
taken no pains to cultivate even a favourite sister's acquaint- 
ance, happened one day to meet with Lady Mary Pierrepont 
in her apartments, and was so struck with her wit as well as 
beauty, aud charmed with the unusual accomplishment of a regard 



HER LIFE AND WRITINGS. 819 

for his favourite classics, that in a few days he made her a present 
of a superb edition of Quintus Curtius ; — no very gallant author, 
but one whom she had mentioned as having never read. The 
present was even accompanied with some verses, not very good, 
but quite glowing enough from a person of his character to 
amount to a " declaration of love." His sister fanned the flame 
with all her might ; and a correspondence ensued, the nature and 
consequence of which are thus narrated in the Introductory 
Anecdotes : — 

" How soon this declaration of love in verse was followed by one in 
prose does not appear ; bnt Mrs. Anne Wortley grew more eloquent in 
Lady Mary's praise, and more eagerly desirous of her correspondence. No 
wonder ; since the rough draft of a letter in her brother's hand, indorsed 
* For my sister to Lady M. P.' betrays that he was the writer, and she only 
the transcriber, of professions and encomiums that' sound extravagant as 
addressed by one woman to another. But she did not live to be long the 
medium through which they passed ; a more direct correspondence soon 
began, and was continued after her decease. When married, Mr. Wortley 
and Lady Mary agreed to put by and preserve as memorials of the days of 
courtship, all their letters ; a curious collection, and very different from 
what a romance-writer would have framed ; on his side, no longer compli- 
mentary, but strikingly expressive of a real strong passion, combated in 
vain by a mind equally strong, which yielded to it against its conviction 
and against its will. ' Celui qui aime plus qu'il ne voudroit,' as a French 
author somewhere says, is, after all, the person in whom love has taken the 
strongest hold. They were perpetually on the point of breaking together ; 
he felt and knew that they suited each other very ill : he saw, or thought 
he saw, his rivals encouraged, if not preferred : he was more affronted 
than satisfied with her assurance of a sober esteem and regard ; and yet 
every struggle to get free did but end where it set out, leaving him 
still a captive, galled by his chain, but unable to sever one link of it 
effectually. 

" After some time thus spent in fluctuations, disputes, and lovers' 
quarrels, he at length made his proposals to Lord Dorchester, who received 
them favourably, and was very gracious to him, till the Grim-Gribber 
part of the business — the portion and settlements — came under considera- 
tion ; but then broke off the match with great anger, on account of a 
disagreement which subsequent events had rendered memorable. We see 
how the practice of a man's entailing his estate upon his eldest son while 
as yet an unborn child, an unknown being, is ridiculed in the Tatler and 
Spectator, whose authors, it may be observed, had no estates to entail. 
Mr. Wortley, who had, entertained the same opinions. Possibly they were 
originally his own, and promulgated by Addison and Steele at his sugges- 
tion ; for, as he always liked to think for himself, many of his notions were 
singular and speculative. However this might be, he upheld the system, 
and acted upon it, offering to make the best provision in his power for Lady 
Mary, but steadily refusing to settle his landed property upon a son who, 
for aught he knew, might prove unworthy to possess it — might be a spend- 
thrift, an idiot, or villain. 



820 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU : 

"Lord Dorchester, on the other hand, said that these philosophic theories 
were very fine, but his grandchildren should not run the risk of being left 
beggars ; and as he had to do with a person of no common firmness, the 
treaty ended there. 

" The secret correspondence and intercourse went on as before ; and 
shortly Lady Mary acquainted her loyer that she was peremptorily com- 
manded to accept the offers of another suitor, ready to close with all her 
father's terms ; to settle handsome pin-money, jointure, provision for heirs, 
and so forth ; and, moreover, concede the point most agreeable to herself, 
that of giving her a fixed establishment in London, which, by-the-by, Mr. 
Wortley had always protested against. Lord Dorchester seems to have 
asked no questions touching her inclination in either instance. A man 
who is now about to sell an estate, seldom thinks of inquiring whether it 
will please or displease his tenantry to be transferred to a new landlord ; 
and just as little then did parents, in disposing of a daughter, conceive it 
necessary to consult her will and pleasure. For a young lady to interfere, 
or claim a right of choice, was almost thought, as it is in France, a species 
of indelicacy. Lady Mary nevertheless declared, though timidly, her utter 
antipathy to the person proposed to her. Upon this, her father summoned 
her to his awful presence, and after expressing surprise at her presumption 
in questioning his judgment, assured her he would not give her a single 
sixpence if she married anybody else. She sought the usual recourse of 
poor damsels in the like case, begging permission to split the difference (if 
we may so say), by not marrying at all ; but he answered that she should be 
immediately sent to a remote place in the country, reside there during his 
life, and at his death have no portion save a moderate annuity. Relying 
upon the effect of these threats, he proceeded as if she had given her 
fullest and freest consent ; settlements were drawn, wedding-clothes bought, 
the day was appointed, and everything made ready, when she left the house 
to marry Mr. Wortley." — p. 17. 

Lady Mary has expressed it better. She seems to imply 
also, that Mr. Wortley's hand was not her only alternative. We 
will quote the whole passage alluded to, as it is characteristic 
both of herself and of Spence, in one of whose letters it is to 
be found : — 

" ' I already desired,' says he, ' to be acquainted with Lady Mary, and 
could never bring it about, though we were so often together in London. 
Soon after we came to this place (Rome) her ladyship came here ; and in 
live days I was well acquainted with her. She is one of the most shining 
characters in the world, but shines like a comet ; she is all irregularity, 
and always wandering ; the most wise, the most imprudent ; loveliest, 
most disagreeable ; bcst-natured, cruellest woman in the world ; " all 
things by turns, and nothing long." She was married young ; and she 
told me with that freedom which travelling gives, that she was never in so 
great a hurry of thought, as the month before she was married ; she scarce 
slept any one night that month. You know she was one of the most cele- 
brated beauties of her day, and had a vast number of offers, and the thing 
that kept her awake was who to fix upon. She was determined as to two 
points from the first : that is, to be married to somebody, and not to be 



HER LIFE AND WRITINGS. 821 

married to the man her father advised her to have. The last night of the 
month she determined ; and in the morning left the husband of her ''father's 
choice buying the wedding-ring, and scuttled away to be married to 
Mr. Wortley.'" — Spence's Anecdotes, ut sup., p. 18. 

This phrase " scuttling away" was no very sentimental way 
of putting the case ; but it was very lively and characteristic, 
and just what was to be expected from the writer of the letters to 
Mrs. Hewett, her friend, at that time ; which, if Mr. Wortley 
had seen, or seen the like, no wonder he felt a little ante-bridal 
trepidation. 

Now it is clear to us, from the above statements, and from all 
that was said and clone by the parties, before and after marriage, 
that there was no real love on either side. There may indeed 
have been a "real strong passion" in one or both, for having 
their way ; much suffering and struggling with the will and the 
desire of ascendancy, and a final resolution to indulge it, happen 
what might ; but real, strong love, is not the thing to hesitate, 
and calculate, and quarrel. It is too much inclined to take 
•everything for granted ; and too humble and absorbed in its 
object, not to be glad to make every concession. The whole 
truth of the matter we take to be, that both parties were young 
and handsome ; that the gentleman was somewhat dull and per- 
plexed by the very vivacity he admired ; and the lady a little 
impatient at the dulness, in a gentleman otherwise so good and 
good-looking. Probably she endeavoured to pique him into 
admiration by coquetry with others (a dangerous step) ; and her 
impatience rendered it difficult for her to suppress a few sarcastic 
evidences of her superiority in point of wit ; and hence, doubt on 
both sides before marriage, and speedy confirmation of it after- 
wards. 

The writer of the Introductory Anecdotes thinks it "hard to 
divine" why Mr. Edward Wortley has been represented by Dal- 
laway and others " as a dull, phlegmatic country gentleman, of a 
tame genius, and moderate capacity," or, "of parts more solid 
than brilliant," which, " in common parlance, is a civil way of 
saying the same thing." But we should like to know what there 
is to show to the contrary ; and how much there is not, through- 
out these volumes, to make out the character ; not, indeed, in its 
dullest sense — far from it — but still dull in comparison with a 
husband more suitable to Lady Mary, and quite compatibly so 
with his attainments as a scholar and a politician. A man of 
very limited capacity may be all which the writer speaks of; 

21 



322 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 

praised by his circle for soundness of judgment (especially if lie 
be a man of quality and staid manners), a professor of scholar- 
ship and polite literature, — one who has made the grand tour, 
and mastered divers languages, — nay, a holder of unconventional 
opinions, member of a club of wits, and one who has chosen 
Addison himself for his bosom friend ; and yet it does not follow 
that all this may not have been the result of a want instead of an 
abundance of high intellectual qualities, and justly terminate in a 
mediocrity of reputation. You may differ with society out of a 
paucity as well as an abundance of ideas, especially if your self- 
will and your consciousness of good intention are pretty much on 
a par. There are dull fellows on the side of innovation, as well 
as Eousseaus and Platos. Many a solemn pretender has been 
member of a literary club ; and Addison himself, with all his wit, 
could not talk till he had had his bottle, and might have admitted 
to his friendship a gentleman " more solid than brilliant," with- 
out the implication of anything very particular sub rosd. In 
short, we would refer to the letters of Mr. Wortley Montagu in 
the volumes before us, and ask what there is in these beyond a 
decent amount of intellect ? His early ones imply the jealousies 
and hesitation of an understanding inferior to the lady's ; and his 
later, a mere turn for matter-of-fact, or the duller parts of scholar- 
ship. Before marriage, he was always expressing a desire to 
know what was passing in his mistress's heart ; a curiosity so 
teasing and futile, that she could not repress an impatience at it. 
She says, in a mixed tone of annoyance and naivete, " Pray which 
way would you see into my heart ? You can frame no guesses 
about it, from either my speaking or w r riting ; and supposing I 
should attempt to show it you, I know no other way." 

But, dull or not, or whether there was any love or not between 
them before marriage, he seems to have had the opportunity of 
realizing her affection afterwards, could he have shown a reason- 
able measure of it himself, either towards her or his child ; for 
in both these respects he appears to have been as dull as in 
others ; so much so, indeed, that the thing amounts to a mystery. 
Shortly after the marriage, he took occasion of his parliamentary 
duties to be away from his wife as much as possible, keeping her 
in the country while he was in town, and never seeing either her 
or his child for five or six months together. The following is the 
constant tone of her earlier matrimonial letters, intermingled with 
expressions of fondness :■ — 

" Your short letter came to me this morning ; but I won't quarrel with 



HER LIFE AND WRITINGS. * 323 

it, since it brought me good news of your health. I wait with impatience 
for that of your return." — vol. i. p. 194. 

" I continue indifferently well, and endeavour as much as I can to pre- 
serve myself from spleen and melancholy ; not for my own sake, but in the 
condition I am, I believe it may be of very ill consequence ; passing whole 
days alone as I do, I do not always find it possible." — p. 197. 

" I don't believe you expect to hear from me so scon ! I remember you 
did not so much as desire it ; but I will not be so nice as to quarrel with 
you on that point ; perhaps you would laugh at that delicacy, which is, 
however, an attendant upon tender friendship. I expect a letter next post 
to tell me you are well in London, and that your business will not detain 
you long from her who cannot live without you." — p. 198. 

" I am alone, without any amusement to take up my thoughts. I am in 
circumstances in which melancholy is apt to prevail even over all amuse- 
ments, dispirited and alone, and you write me quarrelling letters." — p. 199. 

" How can you be so careless ? Is it because you don't love writing ? " 
—p. 202. 

" You know where I am, and I have not once heard from you. I am 
tired of this place, because I do not ; and if you persist in your silence, I 
will return to Wharnclifre." — p. 203. 

" Your absence increases my melancholy so much, I fright myself with 
imaginary horrors ; and shall always be fancying dangers for you, while 

you are out of my sight. I am afraid of Lord H , I am afraid of 

everything ; there wants but little of my being afraid of the smallpox for 
you ; so unreasonable are my fears, which, however, proceed from an 
unlimited love. If I lose you — I cannot bear that if — which, bless God, is 
without probability ; but since the loss of my poor unhappy brother, I 
dread every evil." — p. 204. 

"lam concerned I have not heard from you; you might have writ 
while I was on the road, and your letter would have met me here. I am 
in abundance of pain about our dear child : though I am convinced it is 
both silly and wicked to set my heart too fondly on anything in this world, 
yet I cannot overcome myself as far as to think of parting with him with 
the resignation I ought to do. I hope and I beg of God he may live to be . 
a comfort to us both." — p. 205. 

" I know very well that nobody was ever teased into a liking ; and 'tis 
perhaps harder to revive a past one than to overcome an aversion ; but I 
cannot forbear any longer telling you, I think you use me very unkindly. 
I don't say so much of your absence as I should do, if you were in the 
country and I in London ; because I would not have you believe that I am 
impatient to be in town ; but I am very sensible I parted with you in July, 
and it is now the middle of Xovember — as if this was not hardship enough, 
you do not tell me you are sorry for it. You write seldom, and with so 
much indifference as shows you hardly think of me at all. I complain of 
ill-health, and you. only say you hope" it is not so bad as I make it. You 
never inquire after your child. I would fain flatter myself you have more 
kindness for him and me than you express ; but I reflect with grief that a 
man that is ashamed of passions that are natural and reasonable, is generally 
proud of those that are shameful and silly" — p. 206. 

" Oh, oli ! " as they say in Parliament. But here, we con- 
ceive, lay the secret of this growing alienation. The lady, in all 



324 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU : 

respects, was too much for him, — had too much fondness (if he 
could but have responded to it), too much vivacity of all sorts, 
and even too much of his favourite " good sense." She saw 
further than he did, and with greater brilliancy. Her eye cast 
a lustre, and dazzled and humiliated his plainer perceptions. 
Gaiety and tenderness she might probably have taken as substi- 
tutes for what was wanting in mind ; but these he was too formal, 
or too afraid of self-committals to give. Not liking to acknow- 
ledge his inferiority, he must lower her to his level by doubts of 
her moral qualities, her sincerity, and good temper. By degrees 
he probably did try them a little overmuch ; and she, beginning 
to despair of finally winning him, looked about for other conso- 
lations, not, however, without an occasional twit at him for dis- 
appointing her. After one or two more bitter complainings, they 
take a sarcastic turn : — 

" Adieu. I wish you would learn of Mr. Steele to write to your wife." 
—p. 212. 

What a pity, by the way, she could not have married such a 
man as Steele ! Her money, and prudence in money matters, 
without the coldness of his own wife, would have given him what 
he wanted ; and he might have kept her tenderness and respect 
alive by an understanding as good as her own, and a vivacity no 
way inferior. Yet, perhaps, a husband of more manifest ascen- 
dancy, provided he was loving also, would have suited her still 
better. The height of her spirit may have required to be over- 
topped. 

At length complaint ceases, and advice-giving commences, 
and in no very complimentary style. The following touch, how- 
ever, accompanies the Steele inuendo : — 

" I am told that you are very secure at Newark : if you are so in the 
west, I cannot see why you should set up in three different places, unless it 
be to treble the expense." — p. 211. 

" 'Tis surprising to me that you are all this while in the midst of your 
friends without being sure of a place, when so many insignificant creatures 
come in without any opposition." — p. 217. 

" Your letter very much vexed me. I cannot imagine why you should 
doubt being the better for a place of that consideration, which it is in your 
power to lay down, whenever you dislike the measures that arc taken." — 
p. 218. 

" You seem not to have received my letters, or not to have understood 
them ; you had been chosen undoubtedly at York, had you declared in 
time."— p. 220. 

If her temper was not good, however, all is accounted for at 



HER LIFE AND WRITINGS. 325 

once ; for Wortley was hardly the man to supply any defects on 
her part out of his own stock, or to hear with them very long. 
Her descendants, it is true, say her temper was good, and that 
her "servants" thought so; which is saying much: hut report 
has made loud insinuations to the contrary; and her sarcasms 
and self-will, we must say, go nigh to confirm it. Still, a woman 
of her great good sense might have modified, if she could not 
get rid of the infirmity, had her husband's intellect been at all on 
a par with hers, or his heart capable of calling hers forth. But 
this, alas ! w 7 as not the case. 

Such is the state of feeling between the parties, when Mr. 
Wortley obtains a place in the Treasury, and is forced to bring 
Lady Mary to court. She attracts the notice to be expected by 
her wit and beauty. The Prince of Wales (George the Second) 
calls out to the Princess " in a rapture," to look " how becomingly 
Lady Mary was dressed." "Lady Mary always dresses well," 
said the Princess, drily, and returned to her cards. But a liberty 
taken wuth her ladyship by "Mr. Secretary Craggs " (Pope's 
friend) lets us perhaps more into the interior of her life and 
manners at this period, than the relator of it seems to suppose. 

" A former edition," says Lady Louisa, "tells us that the 
court of George the First was modelled upon that of Louis the 
Fifteenth." A whimsical model! Since Louis was about seven 
years old w T hen George, a man of sixty, ascended the British 
throne. One would think Louis the Fourteenth must have been 
the person meant, but that the retired habits of the English 
monarch accorded no better with the stately ceremonial of the 
elder French one, than with the amusements and regulations of 
his great-grandson's nursery. George the First w r ent to the play 
or opera in a sedan-chair, and sat, like another gentleman, in the 
corner of a lady's (a German lady's) box, with a couple of Turks 
in waiting, instead of lords or grooms of the bedchamber. In 
one respect his court, if court it could be called, bore some 
resemblance to the old establishment of Versailles. There was a 
Madame de Maintenon. Of the three favourite ladies who had 
accompanied him from Hanover, viz. Mademoiselle de Schulen- 
berg, the Countess Platen, and Madame Kilmansegg, the first 
alone, whom he created Duchess of Kendal, w T as lodged in St. 
James's Palace, and had such respect paid her as much confirmed 
the rumour of a left-hand marriage. She presided at the King's 
evening-parties, consisting of the Germans who formed his familiar 
society, a few English ladies, and fewer Englishmen : among 



326 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU : 

them Mr. Craggs the Secretary of State, who had been at Hanover 
in the Queen's time, and by thus giving the entree in private, 
passed for a sort of favourite. 

" Lady Mary's journal related a ridiculous adventure of her own at one 
of these 'royal parties ; which, by-tke-by, stood in great need of some 
laughing matter to enliven them, for they seem to have been even more 
dull than it was reasonable to expect they should be. She had one evening 
a particular engagement that made her wish to be dismissed unusually 
early ; she explained her reasons to the Duchess of Kendal, and the duchess 
informed the King, who, after a few complimentary remonstrances, appeared 
to acquiesce. But when he saw her about to take her leave, he began 
battling the point afresh, declaring it was unfair and perfidious to cheat 
him in such a manner, and saying many other fine things, in spite of which 
she at last contrived to escape. At the foot of the great stairs she ran 
against Secretary Craggs, just coming in, who stopped to inquire what was 
the matter ? were the company put off ? She told him why she went 
away, and how urgently the King had pressed her to stay longer : possibly 
dwelling on that head with some small complacency. Mr. Craggs made no 
remark ; but, when he had heard all, snatching her up in his arms as a 
nurse carries a child, he ran full speed with her upstairs, deposited her 
within the ante-chamber, kissed both her hands respectfully (still not saying 
a word), and vanished. The pages seeing her returned, they knew not 
how, hastily threw open the inner doors, and, before she had recovered her 
breath, she found herself again in the King's presence. ' Ah ! la revoila? 
cried he and the duchess, extremely pleased, and began thanking her for 
her obliging change of mind. The motto on all palace gates is ' Hush,' as 
Lady Mary very well knew. She had not to learn that mystery and caution 
ever spread their awful wings over the precincts of a court ; where nobody 
knows what dire mischief may ensue from one unlucky syllable babbled 
about anything, or about nothing at a wrong time. But she was bewildered, 
fluttered, and entirely off her guard ; so beginning giddily with, ( Oh lord, 
sir ! I have been so frightened ! ' she told his majesty the whole story 
exactly as she would have told it to any one else. He had not done ex- 
claiming, nor his Germans wondering, when again the door flew open, and 
the attendants announced Mr. Secretary Craggs, who, but that moment 
arrived, it should seem, entered with the usual obeisance, and as composed 
an air as if nothing had happened. ' Mais comment done, Monsieur Craggs, 
said the King, going up to him, i est ce que e'est V usage de ce pays de porter 
des belles comme un sac defroment ? ' (' Is it the custom of this country to 
carry about fair ladies like a sack of wheat ? ') The minister, struck dumb 
by this unexpected attack, stood a minute or two, not knowing which way 
to look ; then recovering his self-possession, answered, with a low bow, 
* There is nothing I would not do for your majesty's satisfaction.' This 
was coming off tolerably well ; but he did not forgive the tell-tale culprit, 
in whose ear, watching his opportunity when the King turned from them, 
he muttered a bitter reproach, with a round oath to enforce it ; ' which I 
durst not resent,' continued she, ' for I had drawn it upon myself ; and 
indeed I was heartily vexed at my own imprudence.' " — p. 37. 

Now, as subjects are understood to have no wills of their own 






HER LIFE AND WRITINGS. 327 

in the presence of royalty, it was, without doubt, an oversight in 
Lady Mary to behave as if she had one ; and as a gallant confi- 
dence carries much before it, and success is its vindication, Mr. 
Secretary Craggs must be allowed' the glory of having performed 
his achievement well, the oath and rebuke excepted ; unless, 
indeed, those are to be regarded as subtle proofs of his very 
gallantry, — manifestations of the dire necessity which he had felt 
of hazarding offence to so charming a provoker. But how came 
he to hazard the offence at all ? How came he, James Craggs, 
the son of a footman (according to her own account of him), to 
take such a liberty under any circumstances with the high-born 
and worthily married Lady Mary "Wortley Montagu, the wife of a 
lord of the treasury, and daughter of the House of Kingston ? 
The reason she gives for not resenting the freedom is none to the 
reader. Compare the mysterious and deferential manner in which 
he is treated in this anecdote of hers, in her contemporary journal, 
with the following, which she gives of him in her Account of the 
Court of George the First : — 

" Young Craggs came about this time to Hanover, where his father 
sent him to take a view of that court in his tour of travelling. He was in 
his first bloom of youth ; and had so strong an appearance of that perfec- 
tion, that it was called beauty by the generality of women ; though, in my 
opinion, there was a coarseness in his face and shape, that had more the 
air of a porter than a gentleman ; and, if fortune had not interposed her 
mighty power, he might by his birth have appeared in that figure ; his father 
being nothing more considerable at his first appearance in the world than 
footman to Lady Mary Mordaunt, the gallant Duchess of Norfolk, who had 
always half a dozen intrigues to manage." 

After giving a terrible account of his father, she resumes : — 

" Young Craggs had great vivacity, a happy memory, and flowing 
elocution : he was brave and generous, and had an appearance of open- 
heartedness in his manner that gained him a universal good will, if not a 
universal esteem. It is true, there appeared a heat and want of judgment 
in all his words and actions, which did not make him very valuable in the 
eyes of cool judges ; but Madame Platen (the Elector's mistress) was not of 
that number. His youth and fire made him appear a conquest worthy of 
her charms, and her charms made her appear very well worthy his passionate 
addresses." — p. 112. 

Such was the person whom the wife of the staid Mr. Wortley 
permitted to seize hold of her " like a sack of wheat," and run 
upstairs to re-deposit her in an ante-chamber, without thinking 
it necessary to say a word. It might have been a very gallant 
action, and much admired by ladies of an extemporaneous turn of 



8*28 LADY MAHY WORTLEY MONTAGU : 

mind ; but would the son of the footman have ventured it within 
the husband's knowledge, or with a lady of Mr. Wortley's own 
sort of repute ? 

Mr. Wortley, not having succeeded much as a minister at 
home, was appointed, in 1716, ambassador to Constantinople, 
where he succeeded as little ; but he took his wife with him, who 
was destined to triumph at all events ; and thus he was the cause 
of her charming the world with the most luxurious pictures ever 
yet given of a luxurious people, and of bringing away with her a 
talisman for the preservation of beauty. Her letters from the 
Levant are so much in the interior of Turkish taste and feeling, 
that Mr. Dallaway, although they told him to the contrary, could 
not help seeing in them the long-supposed fact, now finally dis- 
proved, of her having been admitted inside the harem. Her visit 
to the lovely Fatima is as if all English beauty, in her shape, had 
gone to compare notes with all Turkish ; and if she soon leaves 
the coldness or reserve of her country behind her, in her sympathy 
with languishing airs, illustrative dances, and rakish and scejDtical 
EfTendis, her communications only become so much the more 
original and true, and convert her into a kind of Sultana herself, 
ravishing the wits of Turkey, Mr. Pope, and posterity. No 
wonder her portrait was afterwards painted in the eastern habit. 
The sensual graces both of her mind and countenance (not to use 
the words offensively), were brought forward by the new scenes to 
which she had travelled; and yet so much confirmation w T as given, 
at the same time, to the best tendencies of her tolerant and 
liberal good sense, and she did so much good as the importer of 
inoculation, that she had reason to look on her new paraphernalia 
with pride. We beg leave to say, however, that we prefer the 
way in which she wears them in the portrait painted by Sir God- 
frey, of which there is a poor engraving in Mr. Dallaway's edition. 
We do not at all hold with the arm a-kimbo exactions of the one 
in the frontispiece before us ; besides doubting whether the face 
is done justice to. We feel sure, indeed, it is not. The intellect 
is not there. It is too hard, and bold, and vulgarly pretty. We 
protest against it in the name of all the Sultans ; not excepting 
him who fell in love with the turn-up nose and pretty audacities 
of Eoxalana. A true woman's boldness never is a man's, and 
cannot be mistaken for it. It has nothing to do with arms 
a-kimbo. 

Two points arc clear throughout these and all her future 
letters, — that her good sense (making allowance for a deficiency 



HEB LIFE AND WRITINGS. 329 

in sentiment, and a very little superfluous aristocracy) was of the 
soundest and most uncompromising order, with an ever-increasing 
tendency to universal justice ; and that her husband, except as 
holder of the purse, and a gentleman for whom circumstances and 
a kindly habit maintained a reasonable consideration, had already 
become, to all prominent purposes, an individual of no mark or 
likelihood, — a sleeping partner. Nobody seems to think of him 
as she travels, except out of delicacy towards his companion. 
Gallants at Vienna and elsewhere do not see him. Pope makes 
flagrant love t:> her in his letters, as if no such person existed; 
or adds his compliments to him, as if the love-making was not 
at all in the way. 

"We come now to the second disputed point in her history. 
Pope, who seems to have made her acquaintance not long before 
she left England, was dazzled by the combination of rank, 
beauty, and accomplishments into an overwhelming passion. 
He became an ardent correspondent ; and the moment she 
returned, prevailed on her to come and live near him at Twicken- 
ham. Both he and she were then at the zenith of their reputa- 
tion ; and here commences the sad question, what it was that 
brought so much love to so much hate, — tantas animis codestibus 
iras. Question, however, it is no longer, for the Introductory 
Anecdotes have settled it. To attribute it to Pope's jealousy of 
her wit, and to certain imbroglios about the proprietorship and 
publication of her Town Eclogues, was very idle. Pope could no 
more be jealous of her wit, than the sun of the moon : or, to make 
a less grand simile, than the bee in its garden of the butterfly 
taking a few sips. " Her own statement " (and a very tremendous 
statement it was, for all its levity) "was this: that at some ill- 
chosen time, when she least expected what romances call a decla- 
ration, he made such passionate love to her as, in spite of her 
utmost endeavours to be angry and look grave, provoked an 
immediate fit of laughter ; from which moment he became her 
implacable enemy." 

A pause comes upon the spirit and the tongue at hearing 
such an explanation as this ; — a pause in which no one of any 
imagination can help hawing a deep sense of the blackness of the 
mortification with which the poor mis-shaped, applauded poet 
must have felt his lustre smitten, and his future recollections 
degraded. To say that he had any right to make love to her is 
one thing ; yet to believe that her manners, and cast of character, 
as well as the nature of the times, and of the circles in which she 



330 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU I 

moved, had given no licence, no encouragement, no pardoning 
hope to the presumption, is impossible ; and to trample in this 
way upon the whole miserable body of his vanity and humility, 
upon all which the consciousness of acceptability and glory among 
his fellow- creatures had given to sustain himself, and all which 
in so poor, and fragile, and dwarfed, and degrading a shape, 
required so much to be so sustained ; — assuredly it was inexcus- 
able, — it was inhuman. At all events, it would have been inex- 
cusable, had anything in poor human nature been inexcusable ; 
and had a thousand things not encouraged the flattered beauty to 
resent a hope so presumptuous from one unlike herself. But if 
she was astonished, as she professed to be, at his thus trespassing 
beyond barriers which she had continually suffered to be approached, 
she might have been more humane in her astonishment. A little 
pity might, at least, have divided the moment with contempt. It 
was not necessary to be quite so cruel with one so insignificant. 
She had address : — could she not have had recourse to a little of 
it, under circumstances which would have clone it such special 
honour ? She had every advantage on her side : — could not even 
this induce her to put a little more heart and consideration into 
her repulse ? Oh, Lady Mary ! A duke's daughter wert thou, 
and a beauty, and a wit, and a very triumphant and flattered 
personage, and covered with glory as with lute-string and dia- 
monds ; and yet fa]se measure didst thou take of thy superiority, 
and didst not see how small thou becamest in the comparison 
when thou didst thus, with laughing cheeks, trample under foot 
the poor little immortal ! 

On the other hand, manifold as were Pope's excuses, in com- 
parison with hers, unworthily did he act, both for his love and 
fame, in afterwards resenting her conduct as he did, and making 
her the object of his satire. The writer of the Introductory Anec- 
dotes pronounces a judgment unbefitting her acuteness in falling 
into the common-place opinion that Pope's letters, however " far- 
fetched " and " extravagant," are expressive " neither of passion, 
nor affection, nor any natural feeling whatsoever." They are 
undoubtedly not expressive of the highest of any of these things, 
otherwise they would not have been written in so artificial a style. 
But it does not follow that they expressed none ; or that a man, 
bred up in the schools of Balzac and Voiture, and writing to a 
wit, with a consciousness that his own repute for wit was his best 
recommendation, might not, out of real feeling, as well as false, 
clothe genuine emotions in artificial words. He might even resort 



HER LIFE AND WRITINGS. 331 

to them to express a height of passion, which he wanted, or 
thought he wanted, genius to vent otherwise ; and, after all, 
passion itself has not seldom a tendency to exaggerate phrases, 
out of a like instinct. An excessive state of mind may seek ex- 
cessive words to do itself justice. The very youngest and most 
natural of all love, in enthusiastic temperaments, often talks or 
writes in a way incomprehensible to staider ones, as Shakspeare 
has shown us in Romeo and Juliet ; and we really believe Pope's 
love to have been, in some respects, as true, and as green as 
theirs. That it was not of the highest order, we admit ; and one 
of the great proofs of it is this, — that he afterwards allowed him- 
self to write of her as he did, — to treat her with contumely, and 
even associate her image with nauseous ideas, — a desecration 
which no lover ever permits to a noble passion, however it may 
have terminated. As to his pretence that his allusions were not 
made to herself, it was manifestly disingenuous ; it was a part of 
the unworthiness ; and only excusable upon considerations which 
humiliate while they excuse. 

It is fortunately a relief to turn from the sight of Lady Mary 
as a beauty, to consider her in the character of a mother; and, 
what is more, as a public benefactress. On her return from 
Constantinople, she introduced inoculation for the smallpox into 
England, through the medium of the medical attendant of the 
embassy. She had lost her only brother by the disease, and 
(what Pope would have put into the same couplet) her own 
beautiful eyelashes ; and she was resolved to give her family and 
the world the benefit of a practice, which promised to extend 
the salvation of life and beauty to millions. She began, with 
courageous love, upon her own offspring,, and lived to see the 
innovation triumph, but through such opposition for several years, 
that she honestly confessed she often repented her philanthropy. 
If this abates some of the lustre of her good-will, it leaves her 
perhaps in still stronger possession of the merits of her first 
perseverance, and of the many sacrifices of time and spirit ; for 
she consented to be hawked about as a sort of nurse and overseer, 
in families that required comfort under the experiment. Her 
descendant tells us, that when four great physicians were 
deputed by Government to watch the progress of her daughter's 
inoculation, they " betrayed not only such incredulity as to its 
success, but such an unwillingness to have it succeed, — such an 
evident spirit of rancour and malignity — that she never cared to 
leave the child with them one second, lest it should in some 



332 LADY MAEY WORTLEY MONTAGU : 

secret way suffer from their interference." These must surely 
have been a mother's terrors, aggravated perhaps by a little of 
her own sarcasm and vehemence. We dare say she contrived to 
make the physicians appear very small in their own eyes with 
her topping wit ; and they were fain to assert their dignity by 
trying to look big and contemptuous. We should like to have 
seen their names. Garth could surely not have been one of 
them (on looking into his biography we see he was just dead) ; 
but neither could any one else, who was worthy of belonging to 
the profession, — one of the most truly liberal in the persons of 
its genuine members. A true physician, professing, as he does, 
an art that ascertains so little, and that brings him acquainted 
with his fellow-creatures so widely, becomes almost of necessity, 
if he is a gentleman, and has a brain, one of the modestest and 
most generous of philosophers. 

While abroad, Lady Mary and her husband, besides Con- 
stantinople, visited several parts of Germany ; and on their 
return, came through the Archipelago, touched at the coast of 
Africa, and crossing the Mediterranean to Genoa, reached home 
through Lyons and Paris ; from all which places we have letters 
of the liveliest, and, as they were felt to be then, still more than 
now, of the most literal description ; for a traveller of so vivacious 
a kind was till then unknown, and her sex gave the novelty 
additional effect. The manners of Italy, being a mixture of the 
light and solid beyond those of any other nation, she found 
especially congenial with her disposition ; and when, in the year 
1739, she resolved to pass the remainder of her life on the con- 
tinent, to Italy she went, and staid there, or in the neighbourhood, 
till within a year of her death. 

The reason of her thus passing twenty-two years in a foreign 
country, is one of the puzzles of her biography. Dallaway says 
it was on account of " declining health." The opinion of her 
grand- daughter on the subject is given as follows : — 

" Why Lady Mary left her own country, and spent the last two-and- 
twenty years of her life in a foreign land, is a question which has been 
repeatedly asked, and never can be answered with certainty, for want of 
any positive evidence or assurance on the subject. It is very possible, 
however, that the solution of this profound mystery, like that of some 
riddles which put the ingenuity of guesscrs to the farthest stretch, would 
prove so simple as to leave curiosity blank and baffled. Lady Mary, writing 
from Venice (as it appears in the first year of her absence), tells Lady 
Pomfret that sbe had long been persuading Mr. Wortley to go abroad, and 
at last, tired of delay, had set out alone, he promising to follow her ; 



HER LIFE AND WRITINGS. 3S3 

which, as yet, parliamentary attendance and other business had prevented 
his doing; but till she knew whether to expect him or not, she could not 
proceed to meet her (Lady Pomfret) at Rome. If this was the real truth, 
and there seems no reason to doubt it, we may easily conceive farther 
delays to have taken place, and their re-union to have been so deferred 
from time to time, that, insensibly, living asunder became the natural order 
of things, in which both acquiesced without any great reluctance. But if, 
on the contrary, it Was only the colour they chose to give the affair ; if the 
husband and wife — she in her fiftieth year, he several years older — had 
determined upon a separation, nothing can be more likely than that they 
settled it quietly and deliberately between themselves, neither proclaiming 
it to the world, nor consulting any third person ; since their daughter was 
married, their son disjoined and alienated from them, and there existed 
nobody who had a right to call them to an account, or inquire into what 
was solely their own business. It admits of little doubt that their dis- 
positions were unsuitable, and Mr. Wortley had sensibly felt it even while 
a lover. When at length convinced that in their case the approach of age 
would not have the harmonizing effect which it has been sometimes known 
to produce upon minds originally but ill assorted, he was the very man to 
think within himself, ' If we cannot add to each other's happiness, why 
should we do the reverse ? Let us be the friends at a distance which we 
could not hope to remain by continuing uneasily yoked together.' And 
that Lady Mary's wishes had always pointed to a foreign residence is 
clearly to be inferred from a letter she wrote to him before their marriage, 
when it was in debate where they should live while confined to a very 
narrow income. How infinitely better it would be, she urges, to fix their 
abode in Italy, amidst every source of enjoyment, every object that could 
interest the mind and amuse the fancy, than to vegetate — she does not use 
the word, but one may detect the thought — in an obscure country retirement 
at home ! 

" These arguments, it is allowed, rest upon surmise and conjecture ; but 
there is proof that Lady Mary's departure from England was not by any 
means hasty or sudden ; for in a letter to Lady Pomfret, dated the 2nd of 
May, 1739, she announces her design of going abroad that summer ; and 
she did not begin her journey till the end of July — three months after- 
wards. Other letters are extant, affording equal proof that Mr. Wortley 
and she parted upon the most friendly terms, and indeed, as no couple 
could have done who had had any recent quarrel or cause of quarrel. She 
wrote to him from Dartford, her first stage ; again a few lines from Dover, 
and again the moment she arrived at Calais. Could this have passed, or 
would the petty details about servants, carriages, prices, &c, have been 
entered into between persons in a state of mutual displeasure ? Not to 
mention that his preserving, docketing, and endorsing with his own hand 
even these slight notes, as well as all her subsequent letters, shows that he 
received nothing which came from her with indifference. His confidence 
in her was also very strongly testified by a transaction that took place when 
she had been abroad about two years. Believing that her influence and 
" persuasions might still have some effect upon their unfortunate son, he 
entreated her to appoint a meeting with him, form a judgment of his 
present disposition, and decide what course it would be best to take, either 
in furthering or opposing his future projects. On the head of money, too, 
she was to determine with how much he should be supplied, and very 



334 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU t 

particularly enjoined to make it suppose it came, not from his father, but 
herself. These were full powers to delegate — such as every woman would 
not be trusted with in the families where conjugal union is supposed to 
reign most uninterruptedly." — p. 89. 

Of the son here spoken of, we shall give an account before we 
conclude. The daughter was Lady Bute. As to Mr. Wortley, 
there is no doubt a great deal of truth in what is here said of 
him, and the whole statement is given with equal shrewdness and 
delicacy : but does it contain all the truth ? Is the main truth 
of the whole business intimated at last ? 

Let us look back a little ; and above all, let us refer the 
reader to her letters. We cannot quote many of the passages to 
which we allude. We must employ our extracts with worthier 
matter. But in stating the spirit of them, he will be enabled to 
draw his own conclusions. Lady Mary, then, for some time after 
her return to England, with the exception of the trouble she 
incurred by her zeal for inoculation (which did her but more good 
in the eyes of the worthiest), led a life of triumphant wit and 
beauty, and at one time appears to have obtained a reputation for 
solidity in her choice of acquaintances. In Gay's delightful 
imitation of a passage in Ariosto — The Welcome to Pope on his 
Return from Greece, (that is to say, the conclusion of his Homer) 
— she is introduced the first of the female train, and in the 
following high terms : — 

" What lady's that, to whom he gently bends ? 

Who knows not her ? Ah, those are Wortley's eyes : 
How art thou honour'd, number'd with her friends ! 

For she distinguishes the good and wise. 
The sweet-ton gued Murray near her side attends." 

This was afterwards the famous Earl of Mansfield. Among 
her other acquaintances were all the chief wits of the time 
(though Pope's particular friends, Swift, Gay, and others, most 
likely dropped her when he did), together with Lord and Lady 
Harvey, Lady Eich, Miss Skirret (afterwards Lady Walpole), 
Mrs. Murray, the Countess of Stafford (before mentioned), the 
Countesses of Pomfret and Oxford, and the famous Duchess of 
Marlborough, who constituted her one of the few favourites she 
adhered to ; probably because she feared her wit. These ladies, 
however, were of various reputations ; the times themselves, as 
we shall show before w r e conclude, were not very scrupulous, at 
least in high life; and to distinguish "the good and the wise," 
in the sense of good-natured Gay, would allow a handsome lati- 



HER LIFE AND "WHITINGS. 335 

tucle of selection. Now a reader need only glance at Lady Mary's 
letters to see, that she was not less distinguished for wit than 
prone to indulge in sarcasm, in scandal, and in every free range of 
opinions of all sorts ; and if he peruses the letters attentively, he 
will assuredly violate no charity in coming to the conclusion, that 
the woman who has the habit of talking as she does, would have 
been a wonderful woman indeed, if under all these circumstances 
she had not been free in action as well as talk, and indulged in 
the licence she is fond of attributing to others. Freedom of 
tongue, it is true, does not of necessity imply licence of action, 
much less does freedom of theory ; but in her case, a reader is 
struck with the conviction that it does ; and circumstances, then 
and afterwards, go to prove it ; not excepting those which had 
been submitted to the public in the appendix. The reason, there- 
fore, which induced Lady Mary to quit England for an abode on 
the Continent, we take to be threefold : first, that the disposition 
of her husband and herself were incompatible ; second, that she 
had made almost all her friends enemies by taking liberties with 
their names ; and third, that in certain matters, her independence 
of conduct was such as to render it impossible for the husband 
either to live with, or to separate from her, without danger of public 
scandal ; therefore, as he foresaw its continuation, he very sen- 
sibly, and like a man philosophical from temperament and self- 
regard, proposed, or agreed to a proposal, that they should live 
apart, without noise, — without any show of hostility, — without 
manifestations of any sort calculated to subject either of them to 
more talk than could be helped; and upon the understanding 
(for this is most likely) that the wife should never return to 
England during the life of the husband ; for she never did so, 
but did the moment he died. In other words, they were not 
to inhabit the same country. Comfort, and his own habits on his 
Bide, and independent action, and a handsome allowance of money 
on hers, demanded that they should live apart in two different 
lands. To ourselves, these reasons appear so extremely pro- 
bable, — in fact, so difficult to help forming themselves in the 
mind, — as to be conclusive ; and we think they will be equally 
so to any one who reads the three volumes attentively. Indeed, 
anybody acquainted with certain " circles," will laugh at us 
grave, reforming critics, for thinking it necessary to be so judicial 
in our argument ; but as we regard it neither with a levity 
nor a gravity of their sort, — neither a levity corporate, nor a 
gravity conventional, — but have in view the largest purposes of 



o3G LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU \ 

candour, we feel that the public have a right to an express opinion 
on the subject. All that is said of the friendliness and family con- 
iidence still maintained between Lady Mary and her husband, by 
letter, goes for nothing; first, — because it was by letter, 
never by any other mode, during the two-and-twenty years that he 
continued to live ; and, secondly, because under that, and other 
circumstances, it is quite compatible with the arrangements we 
have supposed. Both parties were still connected by means of 
their son and daughter ; both were of the same prudent turn 
of mind as to pecuniary matters ; and though Wortley was not 
a shining man, he was not a silly one, — much less defective in a 
sense of personal decorum, and of the desirableness of tranquillity. 
" Study your own mode of life," he would say; " but study it 
where it is not looked ill upon, and where my name need not be 
mixed up with it ; and to make the best of matters, we will con- 
verse by letter, as before, as often or as seldom as we please ; and 
so do ourselves all the good we can, and no injury." This, to be 
sure, was not the best of all possible arrangements ; but has 
society arrived at those in any country ? or have philosophers yet 
agreed what they are ? 

We have no doubt whatsoever, that one of the things which 
drove Lady Mary from England, was the enmity she caused all 
around her by the licence of her tongue and pen. She was always 
writing scandal ; a journal full of it, was burnt by her family ; her 
very panegyrics were sometimes malicious, or were thought so, in 
consequence of her character, as in the instance of the extraordi- 
nary verses addressed to Mrs. Murray, in connexion with a trial 
for a man's life. Pope himself, with all the temptations of his 
wit and resentment, would hardly have written of her as he did, 
had her reputation for offence been less a matter of notoriety. 

The following are a few specimens of a tone common to her 
familiar letters : — 

" I send this by Lady Lansdownc, who I hope will have no curiosity to 
open my letter." — ii. p. 123. 

" The bearer of this epistle is our cousin, and a consummate puppy, as 
you will see at first sight." — ii. p. 139. 

"Lady Rich" (a particular friend others) "is happy in dear Sir 
Robert's absence, and the polite Mr. Holt's return to his allegiance, who, 
though in a treaty of marriage with one of the prettiest girls in town 
(Lady J. Wharton), appears better with her than ever. Lady 13. Manners 
is on the brink of matrimony with a Yorkshire Mr. Monckton, of 8,000/. 
per annum ; it is a match of the young duchess's making, and she thinks 
matter of great triumph over the two coquet beauties, who can get nobody 
to have and to hold ; they arc decayed to a piteous degree, and so neglected, 



HER LIFE AND WRITINGS. 337 

that they are grown constant and particular to the two ugliest fellows in 
London. Mrs. Poulteney condescends to be publicly kept by the noble Earl 
of Cadogan ; whether Mr. Poulteney has a pad nag deducted out of the 
profits for his share, I cannot tell ; but he appears very well satisfied with 
it."— ii. p. 152. 

" Mrs. West was with her (Mrs. Murray), who is a great prude, having 
but two lovers at a time : I think these are Lord Haddington and Mr. 
Lindsay ; the one for use, the other for show." — ii. p. 159. 

" Mrs. Murray has retrieved his Grace, and being reconciled to the tem- 
poral, has renounced the spiritual. Her friend Lady Hervey, by aiming j ). 
high, has fallen very low ; and is reduced to trying to persuade folks she has 
an intrigue, and gets nobody to believe her, the man in question taking a 
great deal of pains to clear himself of the scandal." — ii. p. 201. 

Lady Hervey, who has a reputation with posterity very 
different from this, was once her friend, and was probahly 
alienated by sallies of this description, if not by a correspondence 
of a tenderer sort with Lord He-rvey; one of whose letters to Lady 
Mary, of a very familiar description, appears in Dallaway's 
Memoirs (vol. i. p. 46). Even to the last, with all the fine sense 
she had acquired, in addition to her unusual stock, and the 
better-heartedness which it helped to draw forth, she could not 
resist an opportunity of bantering a man to his face, scandalizing 
his wife, and giving an account of it to her daughter. In the 
year 1754, she writes thus to Lady Bute, from Louvre :- — 

" We have had many English here : Mr. Greville, his lady, and her 
suite of adorers, deserve particular mention ; he was so good to present me 
with his curious book : since the days of the honourable Mr. Edward 
Howard, nothing has been ever published like it. I told him the age wanted 
an Earl of Dorset to celebrate it properly ; and he was so well pleased with 
that speech, that he visited me every day, to the great comfort of madame, 
who was entertained, meanwhile, with parties of pleasure of another 
kind."— iii. p. 102. 

It must be observed, however, in Lady Mary's defence, that 
this kind of^talking was not peculiar to herself in that age, nor 
confined to what are called disreputable people, though she 
indulged in it more than others. In the Correspondence of the 
Countess of Suffolk, published some years ago,' are letters of lively 
maids of honour, and married ladies, quite as free-spoken, in 
every respect, as some of hers ; and here rises a curious reflec- 
tion respecting the age itself, the benefit of which a reviewer is 
bound to give her. We allude to the secret understanding which 
appears to have existed, at least in the more educated circles,— 
that moral reputation, as it regarded the sexes, was to be very 
indulgently treated ; and that people's virtues were not to be dis- 

22 



338 LADY MARY WOBTLEY MONTAGU : 

putecl, at least publicly, so long as they combined a free notion 
of them with decorum. We are not aware that Pope's gallantries 
were ever brought up against him, even by the most provoked of 
his enemies, except once by Cibber, and then good-lmmouredly, 
and in self-defence ; and this was the more remarkable, inasmuch 
as Pope seemed to attack them in others ; though he might have 
• said he only did so under vulgar and offensive circumstances. At 
all events, be did not think himself disqualified by his own free- 
doms for writing moral essays, and constituting himself censor- 
general. Nor was his right to the title disputed on their account, 
publicly or privately. Martha Blount, though understood to be 
" a lady that was either privately married to him, or that should 
have been so," was visited by all his friends, female as well as 
male, and of the most decorous reputations. Steele, censor- 
general under the avowed and more modest apology of a feigned 
name, and arrogating, with his delicious nature, no merit to him- 
self but a zeal for the public good, and a life (as he phrased it) 
" at best but pardonable," is described by Johnson, in one of his 
happiest and best-humoured periods, as " the most agreeable rake 
that ever trod the rounds of indulgence :" — 

■ Garth, the best good Christian he, 



Although he knew it not " 

(so Pope described him) had a like reputation. Congrevc was 
understood to be the ciscisbeo of Henrietta, Duchess of Marl- 
borough, who indeed was ostentatious of the connexion. Of Prior 
nothing need be said ; except that while others described him as 
one " who made himself beloved by every living thing in the 
house; master, child, servant, human creature, or animal" (see 
Lady Louisa's Anecdotes, p. 63), Pope told Spence, that he was 
" not a right good man;" adding, apparently as his reason for 
the censure, that besides often drinking hard (which Pope's 
" guide and philosopher," Bolingbroke, used to do), he would 
bury himself days and nights with " a poor mean creature." He 
adds, however, that he turned " violent Tory" from "strong 
Whig," and dropped his former friends. But at least a great 
part of his offence consisted in the low birth of his mistress, whom 
Pope again speaks of as having been a notorious "wretch," and 
" a poor little alehouse-keeper's wife." Did Pope object any- 
thing to Congrevc and a Duke's wife ? We are not aware that 
anybody ever reproached even Swift, personal as he was, with his 
own equivocal situation with regard to Miss Johnson and others. 



HER LIFE AND WRITINGS. 339 

Neither did lie, though a clergyman, see any disadvantage to his 
repute in being acquainted with the mistresses of other men, 
great or small, from Lady Orkney (King William's mistress), 
whom he pronounced " the wisest woman he ever knew," down to j 
the author of the New Atalantis, the friend of Mr. Aldermanjy^ 
Barber. As to Lady Mary, she was bred up among examples oP*; 
gallantry, and family histories as full of them. One of her closest 
early friends was " dear Molly Skirrett," who had a child by Sir 
Horace Walpole, and afterwards became his second wife ; and her 
husband's relations were not behindhand — Lady Sandwich flourish- 
ing in the middle of them ; she was the daughter of the famous 
Lord Rochester, and is described as possessing all her father's 
" fire." On the death of her husband, whom she is said to have 
kept in trammels like a child, and even confined to the house, 
this lady quitted England, "too stupid," she said, " for her," in 
order to reside at Paris ; though the Duchess of Orleans, mother 
of the Eegent, tells us in her Memoirs, that she gave such 
accounts of the " orgies " in the palace of Queen Anne that " she 
would not see her." 

Lady Sandwich probably gave false accounts ; but there is no 
question, that a great deal of licence reigned in all the courts of 
England since the age of the Tudors up to that of George III. ; 
and that the upper circles (and we do not mean to say it offen- 
sively, or without a just sense of what causes it) have at all times 
been inclined to give themselves a liberty, proportionate to the 
temptations created by wealth, leisure, and refinement. The 
liberty only spoke more openly, or thought concealment less 
necessary, in the time of Lady Mary, because it was a time of 
peace and security, with no stirring on the part of the middle 
orders, except in the tranquil pursuits of commerce ; though there 
was still enough affectation of the reverse (or a provoking and 
real amount of it) to make such spirits as hers the more angry 
and self- sufficient, between their indignation at the falsehood and 
perplexity at the contradiction. The case will continue to be so, 
and become the more obvious, in proportion to the growing lights 
and candour of society ; nor can the philosopher conceal, that a 
time will come, when the question must be openly entertained, 
whether a little more candour, or less, will be the better for the 
interests of the community ; whether the system producing all 
that intrigue, and lying, and heartlessness, and occasionally nine- 
tenths of the tragedies in books and real life, and the heart- 
harrowing sights daily and nightly visible in a metropolis, will be 



3-10 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU : 

the better for retaining within itself the same mixture of inclina- 
tion of truth and practice of duplicity — or for begging the whole 
world, with its sorrows, concealments, and contradictions, to speak 
aloud, and consider not what is best to pretend, but best to do. 
An awful question ! that will come, whether we will or no, and 
which those will be best prepared to meet, who have considered 
it in reverence for the mistakes and sorrows of all, and not in 
mere escape or repulsion of their owtl 

Lady Mary's life on the continent is described by her as 
having been passed among books and gardens, and the cultivation 
of intelligent society ; and we have no doubt that the staple part 
of it was ; but evidence escapes her pen of things more in unison 
with what was said by her enemies ; and though we as little doubt 
that the enemies greatly exaggerated, we need not repeat our 
belief in their foundation. As to Horace Walpole, who talked of 
her as he did, partly because he hated her for loving his mother's 
successor (not his worst reason), and partly because he w r as as 
great and scandalous a tattler as anybody, there is something in 
the long, and frivolous, and fragile celibacy of his life, which 
in spite of his wit and good sense, or perhaps the more for it, 
gives a peculiarly revolting character to the perpetual squeak of 
his censoriousness. His disgusting portrait of Lady Mary in 
old age, painted with all the evil gusto and plastering of an angry 
nurse or procuress, is well known. Lady Mary may or may not 
have worn a mask at one time when she received visitors (her 
biographer, indeed, says she did), but she may have done it for 
no worse reason, in a woman of her sort, than to baffle curiosity, 
as well as to screen the advances of age. If she was ashamed 
of showing her face on other accounts, she would hardly have 
received her visitors. She owns in one of her letters, that after 
a certain period, she would never again look in a glass. And yet 
Mrs. Montagu tells us, that on her return to England she still 
looked young ! The following is Lady Louisa's account of that 
final event in her life : — 

" She survived her return home too short a time to afford much more 
matter for anecdotes. Those who could remember her arrival, spoke with 
delight of the clearness, vivacity, and raciness of her conversation, and the 
youthful vigour which seemed to animate her mind. She did not appear 
displeased at the general curiosity to see her, nor void of curiosity herself 
concerning the new things and people that her native country presented to 
her view, after so long an absence ; yet, had her life lasted half as many 
years as it did months, the probability is that she would have gone abroad 
again ; for her habits had become completely foreign in all those little cir- 



HER LIFE AND WRITINGS. '841 

cumstances, the sum of which must constitute the comfort or discomfort ofc 
every passing day. She was accustomed to foreign servants, and to the 
spaciousness of a foreign, dwelling. Her description of the harpischord- 
shaped house she inhabited in one of the streets bordering upon Hanover 
Square, grew into a proverbial phrase : ' I am most handsomely lodged,' 
said she ; ' I have two very decent closets, and a cupboard on each floor.' 
This served to laugh at, but could not be a pleasant exchange for the 
Italian palazzo. However, all earthly good and evil were very soon termi- 
nated by a fatal malady, the growth of which she had long concealed. The 
fatigues she underwent in her journey to England tended to exasperate its 
symptoms ; it increased rapidly, and before ten months were over, she died, 
in the seventy-third year of her age." — p. 94. 

This malady, long concealed, was a cancer ; her courage in 
enduring which, with a spirit so much the reverse of complaining, 
had been justly admired. 

The following is the account before alluded to, of these last 
clays of Lady Mary, given by Mrs. Montagu, who married her 
husband's cousin, Edward. She is writing to a friend at 
Naples : — 

" You have lately returned us from Italy a very extraordinary person- 
age, Lady Mary Wortley. When nature is at the trouble of making a very 
singular person, time does right in respecting it. Medals are preserved, 
when common coin is worn out ; and as great geniuses are rather matters 
of curiosity than use, this lady seems to be reserved for a wonder to more 
than one generation. She does not look older than when she went abroad ; 
has more than the vivacity of fifteen ; and a memory, which perhaps is 
unique. Several people visited her out of curiosity, which she did not like. 
I visit her because her husband and mine were cousin-germans ; and though 
she has not any foolish partiality for her husband and his relations, I was 
very graciously received, and you may imagine, entertained by one, who 
neither thinks, speaks, acts, or dresses, like anybody else. Her domestic 
establishment is made up of all nations : and when you get into her 
drawing-room, you imagine you are in the first story of the tower of Babel. 
An Hungarian servant takes your name at the door ; he gives it to an 
Italian, who delivers it to a Frenchman ; the Frenchman to a Swiss, and 
the Swiss to a Polander ; so that by. the time you get to her ladyship's 
presence, you have changed your name five times without the expense of 
an act of parliament." — (The passage is in her collected letters, but we get 
it from the Censura Liter aria of Sir Egerton Brydges, vol. iii. p. 263.) 

In a subsequent letter the same writer sa} T s : — - 

" Lady Mary W. Montagu returned to England, as it were, to finish 
where she began. I wish she had given lis an account of the events that 
filled the space between. She had a terrible distemper, the most virulent 
cancer ever heard of, which soon carried her off. I met her at my Lady 
Bate's in June, and she then looked well ; in three weeks after, at my 
return to London, I heard she was given over. The hemlock kept her 



842 LADY MAHY WOKTLEY MONTAGU : 

drowsy and free from pain ; and the physicians thought, if it had been 
given early, it might have saved her. 

" She left her son one guinea. He is too much of a sage to he con- 
cerned about money, I presume. When I first knew him, a rake and a 
beau, I did not imagine he would addict himself at one time to Rabbinical 
learning, and then travel all over the East, the great itinerant savant of the 
world. One has read, that the great believers in the transmigration of 
souls suppose a man, who has been rapacious and cunning, does penance in 
the shape of a fox ; another, cruel and bloody, enters the body of a wolf. 
But I believe my poor cousin in his pre-existent state, having broken all 
moral laws, has been sentenced to surfer in all the various characters of 
human life. He has run through them all successfully enough. His 
dispute with Mr. Needham has been communicated to me by a gentleman 
of the museum ; and I think he will gain no laurels there. But he speaks 
as decisively as if he had been bred at Pharaoh's court, in all the learning 
of the Egyptians. He has certainly very uncommon parts ; but too much 
of the rapidity of his mother's genius." — vol. ii. p. 284. 

These " uncommon parts," and '/ rapidity of genius," in poor 
Wortley, junior, amounted to no more, we believe, than a con- 
stitutional vivacity derived from his mother, overlaid with his 
father's dulness, and terminating in a vain and unstable flighti- 
ness of character, which pretended everything, and performed 
nothing. " Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel," is well 
quoted of him by Lady Louisa. He first plagued his parents by 
running away from school, and being everywhere but where he 
should have been, — going aboard ship — apprenticing himself to a 
trade, &c. In early manhood he led a rambling life, always 
telling falsehoods, and importuning them for money, which the 
father, who was very rich, had better have given him ; and before 
he died, he realized a most remarkable prophecy of his mother's 
(see vol. ii. p. 325) by becoming, first a Catholic, and then a 
Mussulman, in which latter faith, with a turban and beard besides, 
and, it is said, a harem into the bargain, he died. He was at 
one time a Member of Parliament, and besides some dull com- 
munications to the Royal Society, published a book on the Decline 
(iiul Fall of the Ancient Eejniblics, the composition of which was 
afterwards claimed by the Rev. Mr. Foster, his tutor. In a word, 
he seemed to be the offspring of the perplexity of his father's and 
mother's first position, — the victim of their mistake, and privileged 
to obtain what excuses and comforts he could get from them, 
which, to do them justice, they upon the whole afforded, though 
not always with the right distribution of blame and allowance on 
all sides. His father, however, though not unkind, was not 
generous, especially (as we agree with a contemporary) for a. man 



HER LIFE AND WRITINGS. 343 

who left an enormous fortune ; and Lady Mary herself had an 
ultra-prudent sympathy with her husband on this head, — their 
only and sorry point of accord ! But she had evidently suffered 
much as a parent. She would have shown her son the love she 
missed herself, could he have returned it. She did so to her 
daughter : and love, perhaps, • would have made her generous. 
Her good sense was so exquisite, and often took so feeling a turn, 
that did we not meet with examples every day of the singular 
difference between the power to think rightly and the disposition 
to act so, we should fancy she wanted but some very little 
encouragement of true love on the part of a superior nature, to 
become all that could be desired. Here follow a few specimens 
of it :— 

WELCOME FALSEHOODS. 

" I am in perfect health ; 1 hear it said that I look better than ever I 
did in my life, which is one of those lies one is always glad to hear." — ii. 
p. 183. 

How true this is ! and how it comes home to one ! 

A RESOURCE TO THE LAST. 

" In general, I could not perceive but that the old were as well pleased 
as the young ; and I, who dread growing w r ise more than anything in the 
world, was overjoyed that one can never outlive one's vanity." — Id. p. 191. 

WAR AND IMPROVEMENT. 

" The world is past its infancy, and will no longer be contented with 
spoon-meat. Time has added great improvements, but those very im- 
provements have introduced a train of artificial necessities. A collective 
body of men make a gradual progress in understanding, like that of a 
single individual. When I reflect on the vast increase of useful as well as 
speculative knowledge the last three hundred years has produced, and that 
the peasants of this age have more conveniences than the first emperors of 
Rome had any notion of, I imagine we are now arrived at that period 
which answers to fifteen. I cannot think we are older, when I recollect 
the many palpable follies which are still (almost) universally persisted in : 
I place that of war as senseless as the boxing of schoolboys ; and when- 
ever we come to man's estate (perhaps a thousand years hence) I do not 
doubt it will appear as ridiculous as the pranks of unlucky lads. Several 
discoveries will then be made, as several truths made clear, of which we 
have now no more idea than the ancients had of the circulation of the 
blood, or the optics of Sir Isaac Newton." — iii. p. 141. 

Benedicts sint ece, qua ante nos nostra dixerunt I 

HOPE AND STRENGTH OF MIND. 

" Everything may turn out better than you expect. We see so darkly 
into futurity we never know when we have real cause to rejoice or lament. 



344 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU ! 

The worst appearances have often happy consequences, as the hest lead 
many times into the greatest misfortunes. Human prudence is very straitly 
bounded. What is most in our power, though little so, is the disposition 
of our own minds. Do not give way to melancholy ; seek amusements ; 
be willing to be diverted, and insensibly you will become so. Weak 
people only place a merit in affliction." — Id. p. 25. 

PRETENDED CANDOUR. 

" Vices are often hid under the name of virtues, and the practice of 
them followed by the worst of consequences. Sincerity, friendship, piety, 
disinterestedness, and generosity, are all great virtues ; but, pursued with 
discretion, become criminal. I have seen ladies indulge their own ill- 
humour by being very rude and impertinent, and think they deserve appro- 
bation, by saying, I love to speak truth." — Id. p. 49. 

A CAUTION. 

" People are never so near playing the fool as when they think them- 
selves wise." — Id. p. 111. 

THE RIGHT SECOND CHILDHOOD. 

" Age, when it does not harden the heart and sour the temper, naturally 
returns to the milky disposition of infancy. Time has the same effect on 
the mind as on the face. The predominant passion, the strongest feature, 
become more conspicuous from the others retiring ; the various views of 
life arc abandoned, from want of ability to preserve them, as the fine com- 
plexion is lost in wrinkles ; but as surely as a large nose grows larger, and 
a wide mouth wider, the tender child in your nursery will be a tender old 
woman, though, perhaps, reason may have restrained the appearance of it, 
till the mind, relaxed, is no longer capable of concealing its weakness." — 
Id. p. 143. 

PARENT AND CHILD. 

" I am so far persuaded of the goodness of your heart" (she is writing 
to her daughter) " I have often had a mind to write you a consolatory 
epistle on my own death, which I believe will be some affliction, though 
my life is wholly useless to you. That part of it which we passed together 
you have reason to remember with gratitude, though I think ydh misplace 
it ; you are no more obliged to me for bringing you into the world, than 
I am to you for coming into it, and I never made use of that common- 
place (and, like most common-place, false) argument, as exacting airy 
return of affection. There was a mutual necessity on us both to part at 
that time, and no obligation on either side. In the case of your infancy, 
there was so great a mixture of instinct, I can scarce even put that in the 
number of the proofs I have given you of my love ; but I confess I think 
it a great one, if you compare my after conduct towards you with that of 
other mothers, who generally look on children as devoted to their pleasures, 
and bound by duty to have no sentiments but what they please to give 
them ; playthings at first, and afterwards the objects on which they may 
exercise their spleen, tyranny, or ill-humour. I have always thought of 
you in a different manner. Your happiness was my first wish, and the 
pursuit of all my actions, divested of all selfish interest so far. 1 think 
von ought, and believe vou do, remember mc as your real friend." — Id. p. 
389. 



HER LIFE AND WRITINGS. 345 

NOVEL-READING. 

Ci Daughter ! daughter ! don't call names ; you are always abusing my 
pleasures, which is what no mortal will bear. Trash, lumber, sad stuff, are 
the titles you give to my favourite amusement. If I call a white staff a 
stick of wood, a gold key gilded brass, and the ensigns of illustrious orders 
coloured strings, this may be philosophically true, but would be very ill 
received. We have all our playthings ; happy are those that can be con- 
tented with those they can obtain : those hours are spent in the wisest 
manner that can easiest shade the ills of life, and are the least productive 
of ill consequences. I think my time better employed in reading the 
adventures of imaginary people, than the Duahess of Marlborough, who 
passed the latter years of her life in paddling with her will, and contriving 
schemes of plaguing some, and extracting praises from others, to no 
purpose, eternally disappointed, and eternally fretting. The active scenes 
ai*e over at my age. I indulge, with all the art I can, my taste for reading. 
If I would confine it to valuable books, they are almost as rare as valuable 
men. I must be content with what I can find. As I approach a second 
childhood, I endeavour to enter into the pleasures of it. Your youngest 
son is, perhaps, at this very moment riding on a poker with great delight, 
not at all regretting that it is not a gold one, and much, less wishing it an 
Arabian horse, which he could not know how to manage. I am reading 
an idle tale, not expecting wit or truth in it, and am very glad that it is not 
metaphysics to puzzle my judgment, or history to mislead my opinion. He 
fortifies his health with exercise ; I calm my cares by oblivion. The 
methods may appear low to busy people ; but, if he improves his strength, 
and I forget my infirmities, we both attain very desirable ends." — Id. p. 146. 

And so farewell, poor, flourishing, disappointed, reconciled, 
wise, foolish, enchanting Lady Mary ! Fair English vision in 
Turk-land ; Turkish vision in ours ; the female wit of the days of 
Pope ; benefactress of the species ; irritating satirist of the circles. 
Thou didst err for want of a little more heart, — perhaps for want 
of finding enough in others, or for loss of thy mother in infancy, 
— hut thy loss was our gain, for it gained us thy hooks, and 
thy inoculation. Thy poems are little, beiilg but a little wit 
in rhyme, vers de soclete ; hut thy prose is much, — admirable, 
better than acute, idiomatical, off-hand, conversational without 
inelegance, fresh as the laugh on the young cheek, and full of 
brain. The conventional shows of things could not deceive thee : 
pity Avas it that thou didst not see a little farther into the sweets 
of things unconventional, — of faith in the heart, as well as in the 
blood and good sense ! Loveable, indeed, thou wert not, whatever 
thou mightst have been rendered ; but admirable thou wert, and 
ever wilt thou he thought so, as long as pen writeth straight- 
forward, and sense or Sultana hath a charm. 



( 343 



LIFE AND AFEICAN VISIT OF PEPYS.* 

CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. — ACCOUNT OP PEPYS' " DIARY," 
AND SUMMARY OF .HIS LIFE. — HIS YOYAGE TO TANGIER, AND 
BUSINESS IN THAT PLACE. — CHARACTER AND BEHAVIOUR OF ITS 

GOVERNOR, THE "INFAMOUS COLONEL KIRKE." PEPYS' RETURN TO 

ENGLAND. — GIBBON'S ANCESTOR, THE HERALD. PEPYS AND LORD 

SANDWICH, &C. 

It is a good thing for the world, and a relief from those conven- 
tional hypocrisies of which most people are ashamed, even when 
they would he far more ashamed to break through them, that now 
and then there comes up some autobiographical gentleman who 
makes the universe his confidant, and carries the nil hum an i 
alienum clown to a confession about his love of preferment, or a 
veal-pie, or his delight in setting up his coach. We do not mean 
such only as have written " lives," but men of autobiographical 
propensities, in whatever shape indulged. Montaigne was such 
a man ; Boswell was another ; and we have a remarkable one in 
the Diarist before us, who, if he does not give us a whole life, 
puts into the memorandums of some ten or a dozen years more 
about himself than whole lives have communicated. The regular 
autobiographers are apt to be of loftier pretensions, and less 
fondly communicative ; but still they make curious and sometimes 
extraordinary disclosures. At one time, the writer is a philo- 
sopher (Rousseau), who shakes the thrones of Europe, and has 
stolen a bit of riband ; at another, a knight-errant out of season 
(Lord Herbert), who breaks the peace in order to preserve it, 
and thinks he has had a revelation against revelation. A still 
more summary Italian (Cellini) settles his differences with people 
by stabbing them ; and as the contemporaries of such writers are 

* From the Edinburgh Review for 1841. — Occasioned by " The Life, 
Journal, and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, Esq., Secretary to the 
Admiralty in (lie reigns of Charles II. and James II. Including a Narra- 
tive of his Voyage to Tangier, deciphered from the short-hand MSS. in the 
Bodleian Library." Now first published from the originals. 2 vols. 8vo. 
London: 1841. 



LIFE AND AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 347 

sometimes almost as strange people as themselves, though not 
aware of it, this assassin, who made admirable goblets and wine- 
coolers, is pardoned by the Pope, because he is too great a genius 
to be hung. 

All autobiographers indeed, the very frankest, have more or 
less their concealments ; for it would require the utmost extreme 
of impudence or simplicity to tell everything. We never met 
with one of whom it was to be expected, unless it was that great, 
but mad genius, Cardan, or the Quaker physician who favours us 
with his indigestions. One French lady (the heroical and unfor- 
tunate Madame Eoland) may treat us as her tenderest friend, and 
startle us with a communication for which we cannot account ; 
and another (Madame de Stahl — not de Stael) exhibit a charming 
truth and self-knowledge beyond all other autobiographers ; and 
yet from neither do we expect to hear all that gave them surprise 
or mortification. Still, nevertheless, the beauty of all such 
writing is, that concealment itself becomes a species of disclosure. 
The moment a man begins speaking of himself, however prudently 
he thinks he is going to do it (and the remark of course does not 
apply the less to tongues more bewitching), a discerning reader 
may be pretty sure of seeing into the real nature of his character 
and proceedings. Who doubts the bad temper and impracticable- 
ness of Kousseau, for all his attempts to disguise it ? or the mere 
self- seeking of Alfieri ? or the pious frauds, and more excusable 
weaknesses, of Madame de Genlis ? (to whom, nevertheless, we 
• believe the world and the present generation to be greatly in- 
debted). If the autobiography tells the truth, there is no mis- 
taking it ; and if it falsifies, even in a truth-like manner, we may 
detect the falsehood in the particularity of its recitals, or in its 
affectation of ease and simplicity, or in the general impression. 
The writer betrays himself when he least suspects it, and for that 
very reason ; and he always exhibits his greatest weakness when 
he flatters himself he is at the top of his strength, or even when 
he is so ; for he is then not only least on his guard, but has 
reached the limits of his understanding ; and by his scorn and his 
final judgments, he discloses to us the whole field of his ignorance 
beyond it. 

As the perusal of autobiography, however, puts the reader in 
the state of a companion, it is far pleasantest, upon the whole, 
when it saves him the unsocial and hostile trouble of such detec- 
tions ; and, like our old friend before us, is as truly candid 
about himself as others— thoroughly open, unsuspecting, and 



348 LIFE AND AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 

familiar — " pouring out all as plain " as " old Montaigne " afore- 
said, or "downright Shippen." 

Let such a man tell us what lie will — supposing he is not a 
dolt, or out of his wits — we cannot help having, not only a portion 
of regard, but something of a respect for him, seeing his total 
freedom from the most injurious and alienating of vices, insin- 
cerity; and, accordingly — though we laugh at Pepys with his 
cockney revels, and his beatitudes of lace and velvet, and his 
delight at having his head patted by Lord Clarendon, and his 
honest uproariousness, and his not knowing " what to think," 
between his transport with the court beauties, and the harm he is 
afraid they will do the state — we feel that he ends in being 
thoroughly honest man, and even a very clever one, and that we 
could have grown serious in his behalf, had his comfort or good 
name been put in jeopardy. 

Till within these few years, indeed, our old friend's name, as 
far as it was remembered, was altogether of a serious and respect- 
ful description. There survived — in corners of the Gentleman s 
Magazine; of naval antiquarian minds, and other such literary 
and official quarters — a staid and somewhat solemn notion of a 
certain Samuel Pepys, Esq., a patronizing gentleman and Admi- 
ralty patriot, who condescended to amuse his leisure with collect- 
ing curious books and old English ballads, and was the founder 
of the Pepysian library at Cambridge. Percy recorded him in 
his jReliques ; Cole and Nichols honoured him ; Granger eulogized 
him ; biographers of admirals trumpeted him ; Jeremy Collier, in 
the Supplement to his Dictionary, pronounced him a philosopher 
of the " severest morality;" and though the " severest morality " 
was a bold saying, a great deal of the merit attributed to him by 
these writers was true. 

But, in the classical shelves of Maudlin, not far from the 
story of Midas's barber and his reeds, there lay, ready to burst 
its cerements — a Diary I The ghosts of the chambermaids of 
those days archly held their fingers upon their lips as they watched 
it. The great spirit of Clarendon felt a twinge of the conscience 
to think of it. The ancestors of Lord Braybroke and Mr. Upcott 
were preparing the existence of those gentlemen, on purpose to 
edit it. And edited it was ; and the " staid and solemn," the 
respectable, but jovial Pepys, welcomed, with shouts of good- 
fellowship, to the laughing acquaintance of the world. 

Every curious passage in that extraordinary publication c 
on the reader with double effect, from an intimation given by the 



LIFE AND AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 849 

editor that it had been found " absolutely necessary" to make 
numerous curtailments. He hung out no " lights," as Madame 
Dacier calls them. There were no stars, or other typographical 
symbols, indicating the passages omitted. The reader therefore 
concluded, that, rich in suggestion as the publication was, it had 
" riches fineless " concealed. Every court anecdote w^as thought 
to contain still more than it told ; and every female acquaintance 
of the poor author, unless he expressly said the contrary, was 
supposed to be no better than she should be. We seemed on the 
borders of hearing, every instant, that all the maids of honour 
had sent for the doctor on one and the same evening ; or that the 
court had had a ball in their nightgowns ; or that the beds there 
had been half burnt (for Lady Castlemaine once threatened to fire 
Whitehall) ; or, lastly, that Mr. Pepys himself had been taken 
to the roundhouse in the dress of a tirewoman, with his wife's 
maid by his side as a boy from sea. The suppressed passages 
were naturally talked about in bookselling and editorial quarters, 
and now and then a story transpired. The following conclusion 
of one of them has been much admired, as indicating the serious 
reflections which Pepys mixed up with his levities, and the strong 
sense he entertained of the merits of an absent wife. We cannot 
say what was the precise occasion, but it was evidently one in 
which he had carried his merry-meetings to an unusual extent — 
probably to the disarrangement of all the lady's household 
economy ; for he concludes an account of some pastime in which 
he had partaken, by a devout expression of penitence, in which 
he begs pardon of " God and Mrs. Pepys." 

Welcome, therefore, anything new, however small it may be, 
from the pen of Samuel Pepys — the most confiding of diarists, 
the most harmless of turncoats, the most wondering of quidnuncs, 
the fondest and most penitential of faithless husbands, the most 
admiring, yet grieving, of the beholders of the ladies of Charles II., 
the Sancho Panza of the most insipid of Quixotes, James II., 
who did bestow on him (in naval matters) the government of a 
certain " island," which, to say the truth, he administered to the 
surprise and edification of all who bantered him ! Strange was 
it, assuredly, that for a space of ten years, and stopped only by a 
defect of eyesight, our Admiralty clerk had the spirit — after the 
labours, and the jests, and the news-tellings, and the eatings and 
drinkings, and the gallantries of each day — to write his voluminous 
diary every night before he went to bed, not seldom after mid- 
night. And hardly less strange was it, nay stranger, that con- 



350 LIFE AND AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 

sidering what he disclosed, both respecting himself and others, 
he ran, in the first place, the perpetual risk of its transpiration, 
especially in those searching times ; and, in the second, bequeathed 
it to the reverend keeper of a college, to be dug up at any future 
day, to the wonder, the amusement, and not very probable respect, 
of the coming generations. 

Three things have struck us in going through the old volumes 
again, before we digested the new ones ; first, what a truly hard- 
working, and, latterly, thoroughly conscientious man our hero 
was, in spite of all his playgoings and his courtliness ; second, 
what multitudes of " respectable " men might write just such a 
diary if they had but one virtue more, in addition to the virtues 
they exhibit and the faults they secrete ; and, third (for it is im- 
possible to be serious any long time together when considering 
Pepys), what curious little circumstances conspired to give a look 
even of fabulous and novel-like interest to his adventures — not 
excepting the characterise cal names of many of his acquaintances, 
good as those in the Midsummer Night's Dream, or the pages of 
Fielding and Smollett. Thus we have " Mucldiman the arch 
rogue," and " Pin the tailor," and " Tripp, who dances well," 
and Truelock the gunsmith, and Drumbleby the pipemaker, who 
makes flageolets " to go low and soft," and Mr. Talents the chap- 
lain, and Mr. Gold the merchant, and Surgeon Pierce, and " that 
jade" Mrs. Knipp the actress, and " Cousin Gumbleton" the 
" good-humoured, fat young gentleman," and Creed, who prepares 
himself for the return of the old religion. Considering what sort 
of man Pepys was, especially at the time of his intimacy with 
these people, it would not be difficult to fancy Tripp, and Knipp, 
and Pierce, and Pin (unless indeed the tailor had too reverent a 
sense of his " orders,") plotting to mystify him with a night- 
revel, as the fairies did Falstaff, and startling his fleshly con- 
science with retributive pinches. His own name, pronounced as 
it was in those clays, is not the least amusing of these coincidences. 
It was singularly appropriate. The modern pronunciation, we 
believe, is Pepps — with a variation of Peppis. His contempora- 
ries called him Peeps ! * 

We cannot avoid adding, that one of his grand-uncles had 
the very ludicrous, and what, with reference to the aspirations of 
the nephew, might be called the highly avuncular name of " Apollo 

* " On Tuesday last Mr. Peeps went to Windsor, having the confidence 
that he might kiss the king's hand." — Memoirs, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 302. 



LIFE AND AFEICAN VISIT OF PEPYS- 351 

Pepys ! " But perhaps it* was the scriptural name Apollos ; for 
one of the three sisters of this gentleman was named Faith, and 
another Paulina. 

AYe must suppress, however, the temptation of dwelling upon 
the former publication too long, and stiil more that of repeating 
some provoking passages which appeared in the notice of it in 
this Journal (vol. xliii. p. 23). It may he as well, nevertheless, 
in speaking of the new volumes, and by way of keeping before us 
an entire impression of the man, while closing our accounts with 
him, to devote a few sentences to the briefest possible summary 
of the events of his life. He was born in 1632, of a highly 
respectable family, the eldest branch of which has become en- 
nobled in the person of the admirable lawyer, who lately obtained 
the esteem of all parties in his discharge of the office of Lord 
Chancellor. His father, however, being the youngest son of the 
youngest brother of a numerous race, w T as bred a tailor (the sup- 
posed origin of our hero's beatific notion of a suit of clothes) ; 
yet Samuel received a good education, first at St. Paul's School, 
and then at Cambridge. At twenty-three, he married a girl of 
fifteen. He appears to have been a trooper (probably a city 
volunteer) under the commonwealth ; gradually quitted that side 
in concert with his cousin and protector, Sir Edward Montagu, 
afterwards Earl of Sandwich ; found himself aboard the English 
fleet w r ith him one fine morning, going to Holland, to fetch home 
the royal family ; nearly knocked out his own right eye, in helping 
to fire a salute ; put on his new silk suit, July the 10th, and his 
black camlet cloak with silver buttons, July the 13th ; obtained a 
place in the Admiralty, from which he rose higher and higher, 
till he did almost the whole real business in that quarter duriDg 
the reigns of Charles and James ; was sent to Tangier when that 
possession was destroyed, to advise with the commander of the 
squadron, and estimate the compensations to the householders ; 
was arrested on a preposterous charge of treason, on the change 
in the government ; retired, childless and a widower, to the house 
of a protege at Clapham, full of those luxuries of books and vertu 
which he had always patronized ; and died there of the conse- 
quences of luxurious and sedentary living, though at a good age, 
on the 26th of May, 1703. He w r as for many years in Parlia- 
ment (we w 7 ish he was there now, taking notes of his own party) ; 
was fond of dining, play-going, fine clothes, fair ladies, practical 
jokes, old ballads, books of science, executions, and coaches ; 
composed music, and played on the flageolet ; w T as a Fellow, nay 



352 LIFE AND AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 

President, of the Royal Society (one reason, perhaps, in conjunc- 
tion with his original Puritanism, why he could never take heartily 
to the author of Hudibras) ; and last, not least, w T as Master of 
the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers ; to whom he presented 
" a richly-chased silver-loving cup," which his noble editor informs 
us is still constantly used at " all their public festivals;" doubt- 
less with no mean justice to the memory of the draughts he took 
out of it. If we picture to ourselves Pepys practising his song 
of " Beauty retire " the first thing in the morning ; then break- 
fasting and going to his duties, working hard at them, fretting at 
corruptions, yet once and away helping to patch up one himself; 
then taking a turn in the Park, to see and be seen in his new 
camlet; loving the very impudence of Lady Castlemaine, yet 
shaking his head about her ; talking with some gossip of the last 
doings at court ; cheapening an old book on a stall, or giving his 
money away ; then dining and going to the theatre, or to the 
house of some jovial friend, and playing " High Jinks " till 
supper: then supping considerably, and again going to work, 
perhaps till one or two in the morning ; and, finally, saying his 
prayers, and thinking his wife positively half as pretty as Miss 
Mercer, or my lady herself, — if we take, we say, a dioramic view 
of him after this fashion, by way of specimen of his waking 
hours, we shall have a tolerably accurate sample of the stuff his 
life was made of during its best period, and till infirmity and his 
public consequence rendered him more thoughtful and dignified. 
The true entire man (to make a grand simile for our old acquaint- 
ance) is like the neighbouring planet, to be estimated neither 
when he waxes nor wanes, but when he is in mid career or the 
full development of his faculties, and shows his whole honest face 
to the world. 

The two volumes before us, we are sorry to say, are not to 
bo compared for a moment with those which have amused us 
with these recollections. We have seldom, in fact, met with a 
more disappointing publication. The editorship, it is true, as 
far as it goes, is of a much higher order than what the public 
have lately been accustomed to see. We believe it was in the 
hands of the late estimable Mr. John Towell Rutt. But, for 
reasons which the bookseller has left unexplained, the publication 
has been very crudely and strangely managed. Thus, it com- 
mences with the omission of thirty-six pages, apparently of 
preface : the Life (so called, as if it were an entire life) occupies 
little more than twenty pages, and leaves off in its hero's prime, 



LIFE AXD AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 358 

where the Correspondence begins ; and the whole IAfe\ Journals, 
. which was thus comprehensively advertised, 

as though it contained all that had been published under such 
titles, consists but of this morsel of memoir, a good set of ex- 
planatory notes, the Journal at Tangier (forty pages), a Journal 
in Spain (seventeen pages), the Journal of the Yoyage home (ten 
pages), and the gleanings of those fields of manuscript which had 
been so plentifully reaped by the editor of the Memoirs par 
excellence. In the new volumes, Pepys, considered as a humorist 
and an original, is altogether in his decline. He is older, more 
learned, perhaps more respectable — certainly duller ; and the 
Tangier Diary will no more do to be compared with the old one, 
than a rainy day in autumn with a merry summer. However, as 
there is really some curious matter, and as traits of him still 
break out, the book is not unworthy of notice. A letter in the 
first volume clears up a question respecting a posthumous work 
of Milton ; and the Journal at Tangier contains some highly 
characteristic accounts of an adventurer, who afterwards obtained 
an infamous reputation in the service of James the Second. A 
new head of Pepys, as if to suit the graver reputation of his 
advancing life, supplies a frontispiece from the portrait belonging 
to the Royal Society. It is seemingly a likeness ; but not at all 
the festive-looking good fellow in the morning-gown, who invited 
us, like a host, to " fall to" upon our good fare in the quartos. 

and the Royal Society have taught him reserve and dig- 
nity. He does not wear so rakish a wig ; nor is his face half- 
snoozing and half-chuckling with the recollections of last night's 
snap-dragon and blindman's-buff. His eye looks as if it knew 
what belonged to a man of his condition ; his whole countenance 
is a challenge to scrutiny. It seems to say, " I am not at all 
the man I was, and you are not to expect it. I shall commit 
myself no further. I have not merely •' two cloaks ' now about 
me, and ' everything that is handsome : ' I have thoughts and 
dignities — and am a personage not to be looked at in a spirit of 
lightness. My companions are no longer Tripp and Knipp, but 
Fellows of the Royal Society, and the great Dr. Wallis." Pro- 
bably — though we hope not (for the jollier picture would make 
the better jest) — it is the likeness to which his protege Mr. Hill 

| vol. i. p. 162), when he declares, that " its posture is so 
stately and magnificent, and it hits so naturally his proportion and 

ble air oj . that he remains immovable before it 



354 LIFE AND AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 

The Barbary port of Tangier seems to have been destined to 
exhibit our countrymen in foolish and failing lights. Addison's 
father, who was at one time chaplain to the garrison there, 
translated a silly account of it from the Spanish, in which the 
most ridiculous reports of Mandeville are repeated — about men 
whose feet served them for umbrellas, and people with dogs' and 
horses' heads, and no heads at all. The gallant and eccentric 
Lord Peterborough, during his voyage thither when a youth at 
sea, got into an unseemly squabble with the chaplain of his ship, 
in whose stead, one Sunday morning, he wanted to preach the 
sermon ! And Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, then Lord 
Mul grave, when he went there to fight the Moors for Charles the 
Second, was sent by the king in a leaky vessel — on purpose, 
according to the Tory writers, to drown him ! His Majesty was 
angry at his having made love to the Princess Anne. Sir Walter 
Scott pronounces the attempt " ungenerous," and thinks that 
Mulgrave had " no small reason" to complain. We strongly 
agree with the negative tenderness of the great novelist's ob- 
jections ; and rather wonder what he would have said of the 
business, had the king been William instead of Charles. Again, 
Tangier, as is well known, had been a Portuguese possession, and 
was part of the dowry of poor Catharine of Braganza. Charles 
(owing to his profligate expenditure) and his brother James (in 
pursuit of designs formidable at that time of day) managed it 
very badly between them, and made it a place for jobs ; the 
nation, after granting vast sums of money to render the fortifica- 
tions next to indestructible, became disgusted, and urged its 
abandonment; and at length Charles — who wanted the money 
that would have been further necessary to maintain it, in order to 
throw it away on his pleasures, and who was not sorry to have its 
garrison back in England to help him to reign without parlia- 
ments — despatched the Earl of Dartmouth to see to the work of 
its demolition. Pepys, who had long been on the Tangier Com- 
mittee, went with Dartmouth for the purpose before mentioned, 
and was accompanied by Dr., afterwards the celebrated Sir Wil- 
liam, Trumbull, as Joint Commissioner and Judge Advocate. 
These two gentlemen, exasperated by undomestic discomforts, 
official jealousies, and the unpleasant and not very profitable 
nature of the task, did not comfortably assort. Trumbull, who 
was anxious to get back — and did so as quickly as possible — said 
he had been beguiled into the business by false representations ; 
while Pepys, not very consistently with some of his notices of the 



LIFE AND AFEICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 355 

Doctor, complains that lie (Pepys) did all the work, and taxes the 
other with avarice and want of courage. The future bold ambas- 
sador at the French court, and elegant friend of Dryden and 
Pope, certainly cuts a figure in the journal of our bustling friend, 
which does not tally with the usual estimate of his character ; 
but accidental differences, especially if they touch upon self-love, 
may create the most angry prejudices between people otherwise 
not unsuited to each other ; and if Trumbull had written a Diary 
of his own, and Pepys had seen it, the latter, for more reasons 
than one, might have thought fit to moderate his objections. 

There are frequent mentions of Tangier in the Great Diary. 
Before quoting the Journal, we will extract a passage or two, by 
way of preface, and to show how business was transacted in those 
days : — 

" 12th January, 1663. — I found my lord [Sandwich] within, and lie and 
I went through the garden towards the duke's chamber, to sit upon the 
Tangier matters ; but a lady called to my lord out of my Lady Castle- 
maine's lodging, telling him that the king was there, and Avould speak 
with him. My lord could not tell what to say at the committee to excuse 
his absence, but that he was with the king ; nor would suffer me to go 
into the privy garden (which is now a thorough-passage and common), 
but bid me to go through some other way, which I did ; so that I see he is 
a servant of the king's pleasures too, as well as business." 

" 19th. — To my Lord Chancellor's, where the king was to meet my 
Lord Treasurer and many great men, to settle the revenue of Tangier. I 
staid talking a while there ; but the king not coming, I w T alked to my 
brother's." 

" 19th May, 1664. — To a Committee of Tangier, where, God forgive 
me, how our report of my Lord Peterborough's accounts was read over 
and agreed to by the Lords, without one of them understanding it ! " 

" 5th May, 1667.— I walked over the park to Sir W. Coventry's. We 
talked of Tangier, of which he is ashamed ; also that it should put the 
king [!] to this charge for no good in the world ; and now a man going 
over that is a good soldier, but a debauched man, which the place need not 
to have. And so used these words : — ' That this place was to the king, as 
my Lord Carnarvon says of wood, that it is an excrescence of the earth, 
vrovided by God for the payment of debts? " 

Here we may see, that the high tone of indifference to the 
people did not originate in the present times. Corn was defined, 
no doubt, in the same terms ; and God as piously brought in to bear 
witness to their precision. The worst French revolutionists, who 
were just of a piece with these great Tory lords — counterparts of 
their pious determination to do what they liked with their timber, 
and to cut off heads as others "grind faces" — held, of course, 
the opinion, that wood was provided by God to make guillotines. 



356 LIFE AND AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 

" 15th May, 1668. — To a Committee for Tangier, where, God knows 
how, my Lord Bellassis' accounts passed, understood by nobody but my 
Lord Ashley, who, I believe, was allowed to let them go as he pleased." 

" 22nd March, 1669. — At it till noon (the Tangier and other business), 
here being several of my brethren with me, but doing nothing, but I all." 

Pepys was in his fifty-first year when he went on his voyage 
to this place ; yet the cut of his waistcoat still had a corner 
reserved for it in his memoranda. He seems even to have kept 
the vessel waiting at Plymouth while it was in the tailor's hands. 

"24th, Friday, August 1683.— Stayed for my doublet; the sleeves 
altered according to sea fashion." 

Being queasy and uncomfortable, however, and always patriotic, 
lie is very angry that anybody else should be dilatory ; and com- 
plains of the " shameful want of discipline " in the other vessels, 
which were " not ready to come out of Plymouth with their flags 
after my lord's signals." 

" So," continues he, " with a fair wind from Plymouth, we were fain 
to lie by for them, losing our way all the while. Hamilton in the Dragon, 
and Wheeler in the Tiger, though shot at from my lord, not being under sail 
to come out to the last." 

- And then follows one of the numerous passages in the real 
history of that time, which show how its only virtue, as it has 
been called — its naval— has been overrated. It is frightful to 
see in our author's Diary, of what a mass of corruption, with the 
exception of a very few individuals, the whole administration of 
the navy consisted ; and how the leaders, both on sea and shore, 
bandied against one another the foulest charges of knavery, and 
even cowardice. We certainly do not take their mutual testi- 
monies for granted, nor believe that " cowards " in British vessels 
were at any time more than very rare phenomena ; neither do 
we doubt that great fops, and very effeminate people in other 
respects, may be truly brave, any more than that the bravest 
men — nay, whole crews of them — may be liable at times to their 
misgivings, or even their panics, when they clo not very clearly 
see the way before them. But a court positively dissolute is 
assuredly not the best nursery for the kind of valour required at 
sea, where fortitude is as necessary as audacity, and glory seldom 
io be won by sudden incursions out of comfortable head-quarters, 
[t was the psalm-singing old seamen of the Commonwealth that 
first maintained the national honour during the reign of Charles 
the Second; and it was the shame of being outdone by it — as 



LIFE AND AFBICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 357 

well, no doubt, as the general spirit of bravery, in spite of corrup- 
tion — that kept it up in the persons of the young officers and 
court rakes who were set over their grizzled heads. James the 
Second, it must be allowed, while Duke of York, is not to be 
denied the honour of a real anxiety for the welfare of the naval 
service; but even he, according to his friend Pepys, had great 
moral defects ; and the best part of the skill and industry attri- 
buted to him is due to Pepys himself. It must never, indeed, 
be forgotten, that there was a right honest feeling in Pepys, 
which was constantly at work for the good of the nation ; and 
our navy, such as it is at this moment, owes, perhaps, a good 
half of its greatness to a couple of easy companions and lovers 
of old books — one of whom (Evelyn) may be said to have grown 
the timber to make its ships, while the other ensured strength 
and order to the crews that were to man them. 

Yet our patriot will never let us be grave with him ten 
minutes together. Readers of our former article,* or of the 
Diary itself, may remember the puzzle he was in about Hudlbras, 
whether to think it witty or otherwise ; how he bought it, and 
sold it, and bought it again, and tried to " find out " the wit, and 
then wondered any man could quote it. He has by this time 
become a solid student in Butler, and speaks of reading " two 
books " of it, as others do of Homer or Virgil. It seems even to 
have been a resource to him in misfortune : — - 

"29th, Wednesday. — Read the two first books of Hudibras. Dr. 
Trumbull being out of humour, we had no merry chat these two nights." 

On arriving at Tangier, he says — 

" On shore with my lord the first time ; all the ships and the town 
firing guns. Met, and conducted in great state to the castle. After dinner 
see the ladies, mightily changed (we suppose, from what they were when 
they came on board). The place an ordinary place, overseen by the Moors. 
Amazed to think how the king hath laid out all this money upon it. Good 
grapes and pomegranates from Spain. At night, infinitely bit with chinchees 
(mosquitoes). " 

" 18th, Tuesday. — Mightily out of order with being bit last night in 
the face," &c. 

" 19th, Wednesday. — I this day put on my first stuff suit, and left off 
socks, after many years." 

"21st, Friday. — Merry at supper with wine in saltpetre. Spanish 
onions mighty good." 

* Id est, the Review's, not the particular writer's, 



358 LIFE AND AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 

" 23rd, Sunday. — Shaved myself the first time since coming from Eng- 
land To church ; where the parson of the parish preached. 

Here I first observed, outside the church, lizards sticking on the windows, 
to bask in the sun. At noon we had a great locust left on our table. This 
morning, in my chamber, was the most extraordinary spider I ever saw, at 
least ten times as big as an ordinary spider. With such things this country 
mightily abounds. But above all that was most remarkable here, I met the 
governor's lady in the pew ; a lady I have long remarked for her beauty ; 
but she is mightily altered, and they tell stories on her part, while her 
husband minds pleasures of the same kind on his. After sermon, I led her 
down to her chair." 

" 25th, Tuesday. — Up betimes, being uneasy with the chinchees." 

"11th October, Thursday. — Up betimes to walk, particularly on the 
stages at the stockade. I ventured within a little way, to see a boat 
making by the Moors, and some of our carpenters lent them. I would not 
venture too near ; for I had been a good prize, and I see their sentries 
mighty close intent upon, me." 

" 12th, Friday. — First lay in drawers ; and with that, and pinning my 
sleeves close, I was not to-night troubled with chinchees." 

" 17th, Wednesday. — W. Hewer tells me of captains submitting to the 
meanest servility to Herbert when at Tangier, waiting his rising and going 
to bed, combing his periwig, putting on his coat, as the king is served, &c. ; 
he living and keeping a house on shore, and his mistresses visited and 
attended, one after another, as the king's are. Eor commanders that value 
themselves above tarpaulins to attend to these mean things, as Wheeler is 
particularly said to do ! " 

The governor whom Pepys found at Tangier was a personage 
qualified to excite all the astonishment, indignation, and disgust, 
of which his patriotic soul was susceptible ; — no less than the 
infamous Colonel Kirke, the detestable instrument of Jacobite 
cruelty in the West of England. Burnet attributed Kirke's 
ferocity to the neighbourhood of the Moors at this place ; but 
villains of his sort are not thus suddenly made ; to say nothing 
of the doubtful Christian good-nature of thrusting off the vices 
of one's countrymen upon a poor set of Mahometans. Kirke 
must have been a man of a hard unfeeling nature from the first, 
and of a will aggravated by bad education. Pepys found him 
carrying out his natural principles in the highest style within the 
walls of Tangier ; quite apart from anything which the Moors 
could do to spoil such an innocent. Brute force was his law, and 
contempt of the many his gospel. The worst vices of Toryism, 
before or since, met in his person. He was as overbearing as an 
apostate ; as disloyal, whenever it suited him, as any quondam 
preacher of loyalty ; rapacious and monopolizing as the most 
Leliish of the taxers of bread. He had a court about him at 



LIFE AND AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 359 

Tangier, which, in corruption, drinking, and profligacy, imitated, 
on a smaller and worse scale (if that were possible), the reckless 
one at home ; and though he was far better fitted to spoil the 
Moors than they him, it is not impossible that, in the heat and 
tyranny of his African government, he first got his hand thoroughly 
into that system of terror, which he afterwards worked with such 
infamy on his native soil. The horrible story of him, which 
Pomfret put into verse, is now disbelieved, though probably 
there was foundation of some sort even for that. He was a 
man drunk (besides his wine) with a long run of disorderly and 
bullying success ; and he had no shame to limit his will, and no 
imagination to conceive the feelings of others, except as giving 
it pungency. It is not easy, therefore, under such circumstances, 
to determine the bounds of any sort, at which a fool without a 
heart would stop. 

Pepys's accounts of this fellow form the most curious portions 
of the present work, and show what sort of a man James must 
have knowingly selected for his instrument ; — our voyager being 
deeply in the royal confidence, and in the habit of communicating 
to him whatever he saw. Imagine this unfortunate, but heartless 
and senseless prince, having the following narratives given him 
by Pepys the next year, when the latter returned to England, 
and then, the year after, employing the wretch against his own 
people. Almost all the instances, to be sure, are mild and small, 
compared with the things he did afterwards ; but we see the mis- 
creant in preparation : — 

" 23rd October, Tuesday. — While walking this morning up and down 
the mole town, with my lord and the Governor, Roberts, the town apothe- 
cary, came to Kirke, and told him of bad wine now selling to soldiers at 
threepence or three-halfpence a quart, so sour that it would kill the men. 
Kirke moved my lord, and he yielded, that it should be staved. Of his own 
accord, Kirke went to see it done — presently came to us again, and brought 
in his hand a bottle of white wine, calling it vinegar, and gave it my lord 
to taste, as also I and others did. I was troubled to see the owner, Mr. 
Cranborow, a modest man that kept a house of entertainment, come silently, 
with tears in his eyes, begging my lord to excuse it — for the wine was good 
wine, and sold so cheap only to get something for it, he not knowing how 
to send it away — and therefore desired he might not be undone. Kirke, in 
sight of my lord, all the while ranted, and called him dog ; and that all the 
merchants in the town were rogues like him, that would poison the men. 
My lord calmly bade the man dispose otherwise of what he had, and not 
sell it to the soldiers. ' Nay,' says Kirke, ' he must then gather it up from 
the ground, for I have staved it ! ' The man (whether he had any not 
staved, I know not) withdrew weeping, and without any complaint, to the 
making my heart ache. Captain Pursell told me, he knew very well the 



360 LIFE AND AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 

wine Kirke staved, and stood on the man's chest in the cellar, when 
the wine about the room was too high for him to stand on the ground. The 
wine was better than my lord hath on his table, or did give him and the 
rest of the officers the other day when he entertained them." 

* * * * * * 

" This morning Dr. Lawrence told me his own case with the Governor, 
which shows Kirke a very brute. Sheres, also, to-day called me aside on 
the mole, to tell me that Kirke owes 1,500/. anions the inhabitants of the 
town, who can get no money from him, but curses, and 'Why do you trust 
me ? ' Nor dare they complain, for fear of his employing some one or 
other to do them mischief, as, Sheres says, he hath done to two men that 
have been killed, as generally believed, by his orders. He caused a 
sergeant to be tied to a post, then beaten by himself as long as he could 
do it, then by another, and all for bidding a servant of his go to his 
mistress, Mrs. Collier. 

" To show how little he makes of drunkenness (though he will beat a 
fellow for having a dirty face or band), I have seen, as he has been walking 
with me in the street, a soldier reel on him as drunk as a dog, at this busy 
time too, when everybody not on guard is at work. He hath only laughed 
at him, and cried, * The fellow hath got a good morning's draught 
already!' and so let him go without one word of reprehension. My lord 
does also tell me of nine hundred false musters (that, I think, was the 
number) in two thousand seven hundred men. This I will inquire after 
more certainly. 

" At supper, Dr. Ken told my lord and the company (Mr. Hughes, 

minister of the parish being by), how Kirke hath put one Roberts on the 

parish to be reader, who will swear, drink, &c, as freely as any man in 

the town." 

******* 

" Du Pas tells me of Kirke's having banished the Jews, without, or 
rather contrary to, express orders from England, only because of their 
denying him, or standing in the way of, his private profits. He made a 
poor Jew and his wife, that came out of Spain to avoid the Inquisition, be 
carried back, swearing they should be burned ; and they were carried into 
the Inquisition and burned. He says, that he hath certainly been told that 
Kirke used to receive money on both sides, in cases of difference in law, 
and he that gave most should carry the cause. When the Recorder hath 
sometimes told him such and such a thing was not according to the laws of 
England, he hath said openly in court, 'But it was then according to the 
law of Tangier.' " 

******* 

" Mr. Sheres desires my speaking to my lord, without naming my author, 
that a Tuniseen hath brought a prize into this port, the profit of buying 
which (contrary, however, to the express order of the king and lords, for 
governors to have nothing to do with trade) my lord hath given to Kirke, 
though solicited, as he told me, by several others to give them the buying 
it ; whereas, indeed, lie should have left the master to sell to whom he 
would. The Tuniseen demands fifteen hundred dollars — Kirke offers six 
hundred, and will neither give him more nor let him go away. The poor 
Tuniseen complains that he i. ready to starve, having had nothing this 
week hut bread and water." 

******* 



LIFE AND AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 861 

" On Kirke's misgovernment, Captain Silver told my lord, in my hear- 
ing, that a company of the king's subjects were in chains, and hoAv long 
the chains were, when my lord came hither, and commanded them to be set 
at liberty ; and that this tyrannical severity of Kirke's made so many desert 
the place and ran to the Moors. He says, there hath been thirty or forty 
in those chains at a time. Silver hath got me, from the marshal of the 
town, who hath a great many of them, one of the very chains that the 

king's soldiers used to carry, and be made to work in." 

******* 

"Kirke turned everything to his own benefit, nothing being sold in 
town but by him, or his licence, and with profit to him — he buying all the 
cattle of the Moors at nine pieces a head, and selling them to the butchers . 
at twelve, ready money, they selling them to the people as dear as they 
could : this also, in the case of wax, against an express order in council, 
given, as they tell us, within a year." 

After reading of brutalities like these, the laugh occasioned 
by the absurdities of such a man as Pepys, is salutary to our 
common nature. Among the deficiencies which, during his resi- 
dence at Tangier, he discovers in the navy, is the want of a 
prayer, not only for a good wind, but for some wind ! He grieves 
that clergymen show no eagerness to go to sea for the purpose 
of remedying these things ; and wonders that, undesirous as they 
perhaps might be supposed to be of a fresh breeze, they do not 
at least look to the getting up of a little air, west by north, and 
so to the prevention of calms :— 

" Our want of a prayer for a good wind does enough show how little 
our churchmen make it their business to go to sea ; which may serve also 
to improve the description of the dangers and illness of a sea life ; whereas 
they ought, the first, to look after the wonders," &c. " Here comes in the 
story of Harman's chaplain, asking what he should do to be saved" 

u We not only lack prayers at sea for a good wind, and what is yet as 
reasonable, thanks when we get it, witness our own case, but for some wind. 
In calms we not only suffer the evils that may attend not going forward to 
our port, but by ships being liable to be jogged together by the swell of 
the sea, without any power to resist it, they being ordinarily in a calm 
carried one upon another, the heads and tails lying divers ways, like things 
distracted." 

" 26th, Friday. — Being a little ill, and troubled at so much loose com- 
pany at table (my lord not being there), I dined in my chamber ; and Dr. 
Ken (the chaplain, afterwards the famous bishop of Bath and Wells) came 
and dined with me. We had a great deal of good discourse on the vicious- 
ness of this place, and its being time for Almighty God to destroy it /" 

"26th November, Monday. — Mightily frightened with my old swimming 
in the head at rising, and most of the morning, which makes me melan- 
choly ; I fear also my right foot being lame. But I hope in God both will 
go over, and that it is only the weather." 

" 28th, Wednesday. — this clay, to dear my head of matters, I wrote 



362 LIFE AND AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 

many letters to friends in England ; among others, a merry, roguish, yet 
mysterious one to S. H" 

In the beginning of the following March, the Commission 
returned to England. Pepys, meantime, had paid a visit to 
Spain ; hut the twenty pages of Journal written there, tell us 
nothing ahout the country ; and the ten pages of Journal at sea 
are of as little importance ahout the voyage. We therefore pro- 
ceed to the Correspondence, which, for the greatest part, is of a 
like value. But there are some curious passages, and the Editor 
has not been idle in increasing their relish from other sources. 
A letter to the Duke of York, as Lord High Admiral, has an 
extract appended to it from the Harleian manuscripts, in which 
Pepys writes thus to a parliamentary commission : — 

" Let me add, that in my endeavour after a fnll performance of my 
duty, I have neither made distinction of days between those of rest and 
others, nor of hours between day and night, being less acquainted, during 
the whole war, with the closing my day's work before midnight, than after it. 
And that yonr lordships may not conceive this to arise from any vain 
assumption of what may be grounded more upon the inability of others to 
disprove, than my own capacity to justify, such have ever been my appre- 
hensions both of the duty and importance of my just attendance on his 
majesty's service, that among the many thousands under whose observation 
my employment must have placed me, / challenge any man to assign one 
day from my first admission to this service in July, 1660, to the determination 
of the war, August, 1667 {being a complete apprenticeship), of ivhich I am 
not, at this day, able upon oath to give an account of my particular manner 
of employing the same." — Vol. i. p. 125. 

Here he alludes to the famous Journal. Suppose that one of 
Pepys 's enemies (and he had them) had taken him at his word, 
and called for it ! Suppose his friend, Dr. Wallis, called on to 
decipher it ; and the memoranda, one after another, disclosing 
themselves, to the delight or terror of the committee ! Suppose, 
— besides the tailorings, and the turkey-pies, and the gallantries, 
and the roaring suppers, with " faces smutted like devils," and 
Miss Mercer dancing a jig in boy's clothes, — their ears all opened 
wide to the information, that Monk was a " thick-skulled fool," 
his duchess a "dirty drab," Lady Castlemaine "abominable," 
divers of the commissioners themselves " ninnies " and corrup- 
tionists, and Clarendon not exempt from the latter charge, nor 
the Duke himself; he, and the King his brother, and all the 
court, " debauched and mad," the Duke and King getting 
" maudlin drunk," the King a silly speaker, the flatteries of him 



LIFE AXD AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 363 

u beastly," and Cromwell remembered more and more with 
respect ! Charles Lamb — in one of those humours of tragical 
fancy with which he refreshed his ultra-humanity — expresses a 
regret that Guy Fawkes did not succeed in blowing up the House 
of Lords, the sensation was such a loss to history ! The reading 
of Pepys's Journal would have been a blowing-up of the court, 
hardly less tremendous ; only we fear that the poor journalist 
would have gone up alone in his glory. The court would have 
contrived to quash the business in silence and rage. 

Our busy, curious, not always consistent, but always well- 
meaning and good-natured secretary, was acquainted with a great 
number of people — many of whom he assisted, and with all of 
whom he was ready to gossip, and interchange candid inquiries. 
The Mr. John Gibbon, who writes to him (vol. i. p. 168), is 
Gibbon the herald, ancestor of the historian, of whom the latter 
gives such an amusing account in his Memoirs. John was as 
good a Dominie Sampson in his way as Pepys's heart could desire. 
Sir "Walter himself could not have devised a better epistle for his 
fictitious worthy, in style, subject, or logic, than is here furnished 
by the true one : — 

"Mr. Gibbon to Pepys. 

"Good Sib,— "August, 27, 1675. 

"I pbat pardon me; I am sorry I appeared so abruptly before yon. 
I'll assure you, a paper of the same nature with the enclosed was left for 
you at the public office some ten days since, as likewise for every one of 
the commissioners. But, sir, I am heartily glad of the miscarriage ; for 
now I have an opportunity to request a favour by writing, that I could 
hardly have had confidence by word of mouth to have done ; and in that I 
have much want of my friend Mr. . 

" Sir, a gentlewoman of my acquaintance told me, she had it for a great 
certainty from the family of the Montagus, that as you were one night 
playing late upon some musical instrument, together with your friends, 
there suddenly appeared a human feminine shape and vanished, and after 
that continued. 

" Walking in the garden you espied the appearing person, demanded of 
her if, at such a time, she was not in such a place. She answered, Xo ; but 
she dreamed she was, and heard excellent music. 

" Sir, satisfaction is to you my humble request. And if it be so, it 
confirms the opinions of the ancient Romans concerning their genii, arid 
confutes those of the Sadducees and Epicures. — Sir, your most humble 
servant, 

" John Gibbon." 

There is no answer from Pepys. But that Mr. Gibbon would 
have derived no great " satisfaction " from one, appears by an 



364 LIFE AND AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 

item in the Tangier Diary: — " At supper with my lord. Dis- 
course about spirits— Dr. Ken asserting there were such, and I, 
with the rest, denying it." The jolly materiality of which our 
supper- eater's nature was made was not likely to find much ground 
for the sole of its feet in the world of spirits. 

The next letter in the collection, from " Mr. Daniel Skinner," 
determines a question among the curious, as to who the " Mr. 
Skinner" was, to whom a manuscript parcel belonging to Milton 
had been directed, and how the parcel came into the hands of the 
State Paper Office. Anthony Wood assumed that it was Cyriack 
Skinner, to whom the poet has addressed two of his sonnets ; but 
it is now clear that it was the Mr. Daniel Skinner before us, and 
a very unworthy person he appears to have been for the honour 
of such a trust. The parcel consisted of Milton's unpublished 
Latin Treatise on Christian Doctrine, and a complete and cor- 
rected copy of all the Letters to Foreign princes and states, 
written by him when he officiated as Latin Secretary. Skinner, 
who seems to have been one of the young men that Milton drew 
about him for purposes of training, had evidently had both these 
works put into his hands for publication ; and after the poet's 
death he tried to make a penny of the Latin Letters with one of 
the Elzevirs, the well-known Dutch printers ; while, at the 
same time, he was obtaining favours from the new government. 
Sir Joseph Williamson, the busy Secretary of State, discerned the 
nature of the man through his fawning and protesting manners ; 
and after contriving to get possession of the Manuscript Treatise, 
and to quash the republication of the Letters, withdrew the 
favours of government, and left the double-dealing Mr. Skinner 
to his fate. Skinner's letter to Pepys, now first published, is a 
canting but obvious enough account of the whole business ; in- 
cluding an apology for the " grand presumption" of having 
begged " his worship" for a loan of " ten pounds " (a petition 
which Pepys had granted), and a modest request, that the Navy 
Secretary would be pleased " instantly to repair " to the Secretary 
of State, and absolve Mr. Daniel Skinner from the guilt of having 
anything more to do with Elzevir, or with any manuscript paper 
whatsoever. He says : — " Though I happened to be acquainted 
with Milton in his lifetime (which out of mere love to learning, I 
procured, and no other concerns ever passed betwixt us but a great 
desire and ambition of some of his learning), I am, and ever was, 
so far from being in the least tainted with any of his principles, 
that I may boldly say, none has greater honour and loyalty for his 



LIFE AND AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 865 

majesty, more veneration for the Church of England, and love 
for his country, than I have. Once more, I beg your worship, 
and with tears, instead of ink that might supply my pen, I im- 
plore that you would prevail with Sir Joseph," &c. As if those 
who went to learn anything of the great poet and republican, had 
gone to him with letters of recommendation from church and 
state, and would have made even a surreptitious profit of his 
works out of a love for Charles the Second ! This base fellow, 
" untainted" by Milton, was, probably, not unconnected with the 
more respectable Skinner whom the poet knew, and with the old 
puritan connexions of Pepys himself. There are some respectful 
letters from Pepys, dated a few years afterwards, to a " Mrs. 
Skinner," and a subsequent letter to him from a " Mrs. Frances 
Skinner," respecting an ungracious son of hers who behaved ill 
in his service ; and for whom, with a somewhat energetic mater- 
nity, she expresses a wish that his employer had " broken all his 
bones, limb from limb." 

There is nothing more worth extracting at any length ; and 
we shall not repeat letters which have appeared before — such as 
the one from Dry den. The supplemental editor, however, who 
appears to have succeeded Mr. Rutt, might have known that 
Dryden and Pepys were acquainted long before the time he con- 
jectures. Several well-known particulars might also have been 
omitted in the notes, and some new ones easily put in their place 
by an inquirer into biography ; but it is due to the publication to 
state, that the materials are well arranged throughout, and the 
chronology studiously attended to. Nor will the lovers of official 
history, and of the growth of our public foundations, read with- 
out interest some of the correspondence of James's admiral, Lord 
Dartmouth, and the instances of Pepys' anxiety to do everything 
he could for the advancement of the naval and grammar schools 
of that excellent institution, Christ's Hospital ; of the former of 
which he may be said to have been the founder, though Charles 
got the honour of it. 

We shall extract a few more short passages, however, before 
we take leave of Pepys. In his answer to the following letter, 
we grieve to say that we have caught him tripping ; but the 
Montagues, however proud he had once been of the relationship, 
and in spite of what the earl had done for him on his entrance 
into life, were lavish of their own means, and had become rather 
awkward neighbours. Lord Sandwich gambled, and was other- 
wise careless and expensive. 



36G LIFE AND AFRICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 

"Lord Hinchingbroke to Mr. Pepts. 

"December 9, 1G67. 
« Sir — 

" There being a letter of exchange come, of about 250/. 8s., payable 
to the Spanish ambassador within four or five days, my father having writ 
very earnestly (from Spain, where he was English ambassador) that it 
may be punctually paid, and Mr. Moore having not any way to procure it, 
makes me take the liberty of troubling you, to desire your assistance in it. 
If you can with any convenience do it, you will do a great kindness to my 
father and me, who am, dear cousin, your most affectionate cousin and 
humble servant, 

" Hinchingbroke." 

"Mr. Pepts to Lord Hinchingbroke. 
" My Lord,— 

" My condition is such, and hath been ever since the credit of the 
king's assignments was broke by/the failure of the bankers, that I have not 
been able these six months to raise a farthing for answering my most 
urgent occasions. 

" I am heartily afflicted for this difficulty that is upon your lordship ; 
and if upon my endeavours with the bankers I can procure any money, I 
will not fail to give your lordship it ; being very desirous of the preserva- 
tion of my lordship's credit, as well as for all his other concernments. 
Your lordship's obedient servant, 

«S. Pepys." 

Now, though Pepys might not have been able to " raise a 
farthing" within these " six months" after any of the customary 
modes, he, not two months before, had raised nearly fourteen 
hundred pounds in gold out of the ground ; to wit, dug up so 
much which he had buried during his "fright" about public 
affairs and the Dutch. Lord Hinchingbroke's letter, however, is 
endorsed by Pepys, " Dec. 19, 1667. — 60/. this day lent my lord 
of Sandwich" (he pretended to be all that while getting it of the 
bankers), and next year he lends the noble earl six hundred 
pounds. These little prudent stratagems did not hinder him 
from being really generous. He might have died rich, but was 
not so ; and he was liberal of his aid to many during his life. 

" Mr. James Houblon to Pepys. 

" * * * Lawyers have laboured to perplex titles (to estates) as much 
as some interested divines have our religion ; so that our title to heaven is 
made out to be as difficult a matter as that we have to our lands." 

Pepts (in the country) to Mr. Hewer in town. 
« * * * There is also in the same drawer a collection of my lord of 
Rochester's poems, written before his penitence, in a style I thought unfit 
to mix with my other books. However, pray let it remain there ; for, as 



LIFE AND AFKICAN VISIT OF PEPYS. 367 

he is past writing any more so bad in one sense, so I despair of any man 
surviving him to write so good in another ! " 

" Sir Robert Southwell to Pepts. 
« * * * j am here am0 ng my children — at least an innocent scene 
of life — and I endeavour to explain to them the difference between right 
and wrong. My next care is to contrive for the health which I lost by 
sitting many years at the sack-bottle ; so that to keep myself in idleness and 
in motion is a great part of my discipline." 

"Dr. Eobert Wood to Pepys respecting the building or ships. 
u * * * j reckon that naval excels land architecture, in the same 
proportion as a living moving animal a dull plant ! Palaces themselves 
are only like better sorts of trees, which, how beautiful or stately soever, 
remain but as prisoners, chained during life to the spot they stand on ; 
whereas the very spirits that inform and move ships are of the highest 
degree of animals, viz. rational creatures ; I mean seamen" 

" Sir John Wtborne to Pepts, from Bombay. 

" * * * Sir, I have sent you a very grave walking-cane, which I beg 
you to accept, having nothing else I could venture to send." 

"Pepts to Sir Anthony Deane. 

" I am alive, too, I thank God ! and as serious, I fancy, as you can be, 
and not less alone. Yet, I thank God, too ! I have not within me one of 
those melancholy misgivings that you seem haunted with. The worse the 
world uses me, the better, I think, I am bound to use myself." 

With, this most reasonable opinion we close our accounts 
with the amusing sage of the Admiralty. Many official patriots 
have, doubtless, existed since his time, and thousands, nay, 
millions of respectable men of all sorts gone to their long 
account, more or less grave in public, and frail to their con- 
sciences ; but when shall we meet with such another as he was ; 
pleased, like a child, with his new coach, and candid about his 
hat ? Who will own, as he did, that, having made a present, by 
way of douceur, he is glad, considering no harm is done, of 
having it back ? Who will acknowledge his superstitions, his 
" frights," his ignorances, his not liking to be seen in public with 
men out of favour ? or who so honestly divide his thoughts about 
the public good, and even his relations of the most tragical events, 
with mentions of a new coat from the tailor, and fond records of 
the beauty-spots on his wife's face ? 



( 368 ) 



LIFE AND LETTEKS OF MADAMDE DE SEVIGNE. 

SINGULAR AND FORTUNATE REPUTATION OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE — 
UNSATISFACTORY BIOGRAPHIES OF HER HER PARENTAGE, EDUCA- 
TION, AND EARLY LIFE — DESCRIPTION OF HER PERSON AND MAN- 
NERS — UNITED WITH THE MARQUIS DE SEVIGNE — HIS FRIVOLITIES 

AND DEATH UNSUCCESSFUL LOVE MADE TO HER BY HER COUSIN, 

BUSSY RABUTIN, WHO REVENGES HIMSELF BY CALUMNY — CHA- 
RACTER AND CONDUCT OF BUSSY — HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS 
COUSIN — HIS ACCOUNT OF THE EFFECT PRODUCED UPON HER BY' 

HER DANCING WITH THE KING THE YOUNG WIDOW'S MODE OF 

LIFE — HER VISITS AT COURT, AND OBSERVATIONS OF PUBLIC OCCUR- 
RENCES — HER LIFE IN THE COUNTRY LIST AND CHARACTERS OF 

HER ASSOCIATES — ACCOUNT OF THE MARQUIS HER SON, AND OF HER 
CORRESPONDENCE WITH HER DAUGHTER, MADAME DE GRIGNAN — 

SURVIVING DESCENDANTS OF THE FAMILY SPECIMENS OF MADAME 

DE SEVIGNE'S LETTERS — EXPECTED MARRIAGE OF LAUZUN WITH 
MADEMOISELLE — STRANGE WAYS OF POMENARS, AND OF DU PLESSIS 

— STORY OF THE FOOTMAN WHO COULDN'T MAKE HAY TRAGICAL 

TERMINATIONS OF GAY CAMPAIGNS — BRINVILLIERS AND LA VOISIN, 
THE POISONERS — STRIKING CATASTROPHE IN A BALL-ROOM — A SCENE 
AT COURT — SPLENDOUR OF MADAME DE MONTESPAN — DESCRIPTION 
OF AN IRON-FOUNDRY ; OF A GALLOP OF COACHES ; OF A GREAT 
WEDDING ; OF A CROWDED ASSEMBLY — HORACE WALPOLE'S ACCOUNT 

OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE'S HOUSE AT LIVRY CHARACTER OF HER 

WRITINGS BY SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH — ATTEMPT TO FORM THEIR 
TRUE ESTIMATE. 

Madame de Sevigne, in her combined and inseparable character 
as writer and woman, enjoys the singular and delightful reputa- 
tion of having united, beyond all others of her class, the rare 
with the familiar, and the lively with the correct. The moment 
her name is mentioned, we think of the mother who loved her 
daughter ; of the most charming of letter- writers ; of the orna- 
meut of an age of licence, who incurred none of its ill-repute ; of 
the female who has become one of the classics of her language, 
without effort and without intention. 

The sight of a name so attractive, in the title-page of the 
volumes before us, has made us renew an intercourse, never 

* From the Edinburgh Review. Madame de &eci(/n<} and her Contem- 
poraries." -j vols. 8yo. London, 1842. 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 369 

entirely broken, with her own. We have lived over again with 
her and her friends from her first letter to her last, including the 
new matter in the latest Paris edition. We have seen her writing 
in her cabinet, dancing at court, being the life of the company 
in her parlour, nursing her old uncle the Abbe ; bantering 
Mademoiselle du Plessis ; lecturing and then jesting with her 
son ; devouring the romances of Calprenede, and responding 
to the wit of Pascal and La Fontaine ; walking in her own 
green alleys by moonlight, enchanting cardinals, politicians, 
philosophers, beauties, poets, devotees, haymakers ; ready to 
' 'die with laughter" fifty times a day; and idolizing her daughter 
for ever. 

It is somewhat extraordinary, that of all the admirers of a 
woman so interesting, not one has yet been found in these islands 
to give any reasonably good account of her — any regular and 
comprehensive information respecting her life and writings. The 
notices in the biographical dictionaries are meagre to the last 
degree ; and " sketches " of greater pretension have seldom con- 
sisted of more than loose and brief memorandums, picked out of 
others, their predecessors. The name which report has assigned 
to the compiler of the volumes before us, induced us to entertain 
sanguine hopes that something more satisfactory was about to be 
done for the queen of letter- writing ; and undoubtedly the portrait 
which has been given of her, is, on the whole, the best hitherto 
met with. But still it is a limited, hasty, and unfinished portrait, 
forming but one in a gallery of others ; many of which have little 
to do with her, and some, scarcely any connection even with her 
times. 

Proceeding therefore to sketch out, from our own acquaintance 
with her, what we conceive to be a better mode of supplying some 
account of Madame de Sevigne and her writings, we shall, in the 
order of time, speak of her ancestors and other kindred, her 
friends and her daily habits, and give a few specimens of the best 
of her letters ; and we shall do all this with as hearty a relish of 
her genius as the warmest of her admirers, without thinking it 
necessary to blind ourselves to any weakness that may have 
accompanied it. With all her good-nature, the " charming 
woman" had a sharp eye to a defect herself; and we have too 
great a respect for the truth that was in her, not to let her 
honestly suffer in its behalf, whenever that first cause of all that 
is great and good demands it. 

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Baroness de Chantal and Bour- 



370 LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGXE. 

billy, afterwards Marchioness cle Sevigne, was born, in all pro 
bability, in Burgundy, in the old ancestral chateau of Bourbilly, 
between Semur and Epoisses, on the 5th of February, 1627. 
Her father, Celse Benigne de Kabutin, Baron as above men- 
tioned, was of the elder branch of his name, and cousin to the 
famous Count Bussy-Rabutin ; her mother, Marie de Coulanges, 
daughter of a secretary of state, was also of a family w r hose 
name afterwards became celebrated for wit ; and her paternal 
grandmother, Jeanne Francoise Frernyot, afterwards known by 
the title of the Blessed Mother of Chantal, was a saint. The 
nuns of the Order of the Visitation, which was founded by the 
help of St. Francis cle Sales, beatified her, with the subsequent 
approbation of Benedict XIV. ; and she was canonized by 
Clement XIV. (Ganganelli) in 1767. There w r as a relationship 
between the families of Babutin and De Sales, names which it 
would be still stranger than it is to see in conjunction, had not 
the good St. Francis been the liveliest and most tolerant of his 
class. We notice these matters, because it is interesting to dis- 
cover links between people of celebrity, and because it would be 
but a sorry philosophy which should deny the probable effects 
proauced in the minds and dispositions of a distinguished race 
by intermixtures of blood and associations of ideas. Madame de 
Sevigne's father, for instance, gave a rough foretaste of her wit 
and sincerity, by a raillery amounting to the brusque, sometimes 
to the insolent. He wrote the following congratulatory epistle to 
a minister of finance, whom the King (Louis XIII.) had trans- 
formed into a marshal : — ■ 

" My Lord— 

" Birth ; black beard ; intimacy. 

" Chantal." 

Meaning, that his new fortune had been owing to his quality, to 
his position near the royal person, and to his having a black 
beard like his master. Both the Chantals and the Fremyots, a 
race remarkable for their integrity, had been among the warmest 
adherents of Henry IV. ; and, indeed, the whole united stock 
may be said to have been distinguished equally for worth, spirit, 
and ability, till it took a twist of intrigue and worldliness in the 
solitary instance of the scapegrace Bussy. We may discern, in 
the wit and integrity of Madame de Sevigne — in her natural 
piety, in her cardial partisanship, and at the same time in that 
tact for universality which distinguished her in spite of it — a 



LIFE AND LETTEKS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 371 

portion of what was best in all her kindred, not excepting a spice 
of the satire of her supercilious cousin, but without his malignity. 
She was truly the flower of the family tree ; and laughed at the 
top of it with a brilliancy as well as a softness, compared with 
which Bussy was but a thorn. 

The little heiress was only a few months old when the Baron 
de Chantal died, bravely fighting against the English in their 
descent on the Isle of Rhe. It was one of the figments of 
Gregorio Leti, that he received his death-wound from the hand of 
Cromwell. The Baron's widow survived her husband only five 
years ; and it seems to have been expected that the devout grand- 
mother, Madame de Chantal the elder, would have been anxious 
to take the orphan under her care. But whether it was that the 
mother had chosen to keep the child too exclusively under her 
own, or that the future saint was too much occupied in the con- 
cerns of the other world and the formation of religious houses 
(of which she founded no less than eighty- seven), the old lady 
contented herself with recommending her to the consideration of 
an Archbishop, and left her in the hands of her maternal rela- 
tions. They did their part nobly by her. She was brought up 
with her fellow-wit and correspondent, Philippe-Emanuel de 
Coulanges ; and her uncle Christophe, Abbe de Livry, became 
her second father, in the strictest and most enduring sense of the 
word. He took care that she should acquire graces at court, as 
well as encouragements to learning from his friends ; saw her 
married, and helped to settle her children ; extricated her affairs 
from disorder, and taught her to surpass himself in knowledge of 
business ; in fine, spent a good remainder of his life with her, 
sometimes at his own house and sometimes at hers ; and when he 
died, repaid the tenderness with which she had rewarded his 
care, by leaving her all his property. The Abbe, with some little 
irritable peculiarities, and a love of extra-comfort and his bottle, 
appears to have been, as she was fond of calling him, Men bon, 
a right good creature ; and posterity is to be congratulated, that 
her faculties were allowed to expand under his honest and 
reasonable indulgence, instead of being cramped, and for- 
malized, and made insincere, by the half-witted training of the 
convent. 

Young ladies at that time were taught little more than to 
read, write, dance, and embroider, with greater or less attention 
to books of religion. If the training was conventual, religion 
was predominant (unless it was rivalled by comfit and flower- 



372 LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNK. 

making, great pastimes of the good nuns) ; and in the devout 
case, the clanger was, either that the people would be frightened 
into bigotry, or, what happened oftener, would be tired into a 
passion for pleasure and the world, and only stocked with a suffi- 
cient portion of fear and superstition to return to the bigotry in 
old age, when the passion was burnt out. When the education 
was more domestic, profane literature had its turn — the poetry of 
Maynard and Malherbe, and the absurd but exalting romances of 
Gomberville, Scudery, and Calprenede. Sometimes a little Latin 
was added ; and other tendencies to literature were caught from 
abbes and confessors. In all cases, somebody was in the habit of 
reading aloud while the ladies worked ; and a turn for politics and 
court-gossip was given by the wars of the Fronde, and by the 
allusions to the heroes and heroines of the reigning gallantries, 
in the ideal personages of the romances. The particulars of 
Madame de Sevigne's education have not transpired ; but as she 
was brought up at home, and we hear something of her male 
teachers, and nothing of her female (whom, nevertheless, she 
could not have been without), the probability is that she tasted 
something of all the different kinds of nurture, and helped her- 
self with her own cleverness to the rest. She would hear of the 
example and reputation of her saintly grandmother, if she was 
not much with her ; her other religious acquaintances rendered 
her an admirer of the worth and talents of the devotees of Port- 
Royal ; her political ones interested her in behalf of the Frondsurs; 
but, above all, she had the wholesome run of her good uncle's 
books, and the society of his friends, Chapelain, Menage, and 
other professors of polite literature ; the effect of which is to fuse 
particular knowledge into general, and to distil from it the spirit 
of a wise humanity. She seems to have been not unacquainted 
witli Latin and Spanish ; and both Chapelain and Menage were 
great lovers of Italian, which became part of her favourite 
reading. 

To these fortunate accidents of birth and breeding were joined 
health, animal spirits, a natural flow of wit, and a face and shape 
which, if not perfectly handsome, were allowed by everybody to 
produce a most agreeable impression. Her cousin, Bussy Rabutin, 
has drawn a portrait of her when a young woman ; and though 
he did it half in malice and resentment, like the half-vagabond 
ho was* he could not but make the same concession. He after- 
wards withdrew the worst part of his words, and heaped her with 
gyric : and from a comparison of his different accounts we 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 373 

probably obtain a truer idea of her manners and personal appear- 
ance, than has been furnished either by the wholesale eulogist or 
the artist. It is, indeed, corroborated by herself in her letters. 
She was somewhat tall for a woman ; had a good shape, a pleasing 
voice, a fine complexion, brilliant eyes, and a profusion of light 
hair; but her eyes, though brilliant, were small, and, together 
with the eyelashes, were of different tints ; her lips, though well- 
coloured, were too flat; and the end of her nose too " square." 
The jawbone, according to Bussy, had the same fault. He says 
that she had more shape than grace, yet danced well ; and she 
had a taste for singing. He makes the coxcombical objection to 
her at that time of life, that she was too playful " for a woman 
of quality ;" as if the liveliest genius and the staidest conven- 
tionalities could be reasonably expected to go together ; or, as if 
she could have written her unique letters, had she resembled 
everybody else. Let us call to mind the playfulness of those 
letters, which have charmed all the world ; — let us add the most 
cordial manners, a face full of expression, in which the blood 
came and went, and a general sensibility, which, if too quick per- 
haps to shed tears, was no less ready to " die with laughter" at 
every sally of pleasantry— and we shall see before us the not 
beautiful but still engaging and ever-lively creature, in whose 
countenance, if it contained nothing else, the power to write those 
letters must have been visible ; for though people do not always 
seem what they are, it is seldom they do not look what they 
can do. 

The good uncle, the Abbe de Coulanges, doubtless thought 
he had made a happy match of it, and joined like with like, 
when, at the age of eighteen, his charming niece married a man 
of as joyous a character as herself, and of one of the first houses 
in Brittany. The Marquis de Sevigne, or Sevigny (the old spell- 
ing), was related to the Duguesclins and the Bohans, and also to 
Cardinal de Retz. But joyousness, unfortunately, was the sum- 
total of his character. He had none of the reflection of his 
bride. He was a mere laugher and jester, fond of expense and 
gallantry ; and, though he became the father of two children, 
seems to have given his wife but little of his attention. He fell 
in a duel about some female, seven years after his marriage. 
The poor man was a braggart in his amours. Bussy says that 
he boasted to him of the approbation of Ninon de l'Enclos ; a 
circumstance which, like a great number of others told in con- 
nection with the (i modern Leontium," is by no means to be 



874 LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEYIGXE. 

taken for granted. Ninon was a person of a singular repute, 
owing to as singular an education ; and while, in consequence of 
that education, a licence was given her, which, to say the truth, 
most people secretly took, the graces and good qualities which she 
retained in spite of it, ultimately rendered her house a sort of 
academy of good breeding, which it w r as thought not incompatible 
with sober views in life to countenance. Now it is probable, from 
the great reputation which she had for good sense, that she 
always possessed discernment enough to see through such a cha- 
racter as that of Monsieur de Sevigne. The wife, it is true, 
many years afterwards, accused her, to the young Marquis, of 
having " spoilt (or hurt) his father" (gate), and it may have been 
true to a certain extent ; for a false theory of love would leave a 
nature like his nothing to fall back upon in regard to right feel- 
ing ; but people of the marquis's sort generally come ready spoilt 
into society, and it is only an indulgent motive that would palm 
off their faults upon the acquaintances they make there. Be this 
as it may, Bussy Rabutin, who had always made love to his cousin 
after his fashion, and who had found it met with as constant rejec- 
tion, though not perhaps till he had been imprudently suffered to 
go the whole length of his talk about it, avows that he took occa- 
sion, from the marquis's boast about Ninon, to make her the 
gross and insulting proposal, that she should take her " revenge." 
Again she repulsed him. A letter of Bussy' s fell into her hus- 
band's hands, who forbade her to see him more ; a prohibition of 
which she doubtless gladly availed herself. The Marquis perished 
shortly afterwards : and again her cousin made his coxcombical 
and successful love, which, however, he accuses her of receiving 
with so much pleasure as to show herself jealous when he trans- 
ferred it to another ; a weakness, alas ! not impossible to very 
respectable representatives of poor human nature. But all which 
he says to her disadvantage must be received with caution ; for, 
besides his having no right to say anything, he had the mean and 
uncandid effrontery to pretend that he was angry with her solely 
because she was not generous in money matters. He tells us, 
that after all he had done for her and her friends (what his favours 
were, God knows !), she refused him the assistance of her purse 
at a moment when his whole prospects in life were in danger. 
The real amount of this charge appears to have been, that Bussy, 
who, besides being a man of pleasure and expense, was a dis- 
tinguished cavalry officer, once needed money for a campaign; 
and that, applying to his cousin to help him, her uncle the Abbe, 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 375 

who had the charge of her affairs, thought proper to ask him for 
securities. The cynical and disgusting, though well-written book, 
in which the count libelled his cousin (for, as somebody said of 
Petronius, he was an author purissima impuritatis), brought him 
afterwards into such trouble at court, that it cost him many years 
of exile to his estates, and a world of servile trouble and adula- 
tion, to get back to the presence of Louis the Fourteenth, who 
could never heartily like him. He had ridiculed, among others, 
the kind-hearted La Yalliere. Madame de Sevigne, in conse- 
quence of these troubles, forgave him ; and their correspondence, 
both personally and by letter, was renewed pleasantly enough on 
his part, and in a constant strain of regard and admiration. He 
tells her, among other pretty speeches, that she would certainly 
have been " goddess of something or other," had she lived in 
ancient times. But Madame de Sevigne writes to him with evi- 
dent constraint, as to a sort of evil genius who is to be propitiated ; 
and the least handsome incident in her life was the apparent warm 
interest she took in a scandalous process instituted by him against 
a gentleman whom his daughter had married, and whose crime 
consisted in being of inferior birth ; for Count Bussy Rabutin v/as 
as proud as he was profligate.* Bussy tried to sustain his cause 
by forged letters, and had the felicity of losing it by their assist- 
ance. It is to be hoped that his cousin had been the dupe of the 
forgeries ; but we have no doubt that she was somewhat afraid 
of him. She dreaded his writing another book. 

We know not whether it was during her married life, or after- 
wards, that Bussy relates a little incident of her behaviour at 
court, to which his malignity gives one of its most ingenious 
turns. They were both there together at a ball, and the King- 
took her out to dance. On returning to her seat, according to 
the count's narrative, — " ' It must be owned,' said she, ' that 
the King possesses great qualities : he will certainly obscure the 
lustre of all his predecessors.' I could not help laughing in her 
face," observes Bussy, " seeing what had produced this panegyric. 
I replied, ' There can be no doubt of it, madam, after what he 
has done for yourself.' I really thought she was going to testify 
hey gratitude by crying Vive le Eoi." f 

This is amusing enough ; but the spirit which induces a man 

* See a strange, painful, and vehement letter, written by her on the 
subject, to the Count de Guitaut. Yol. xiii. of the duodecimo Paris edition 
of 1823-4, p. 103. 

f Histoire Amour euse des Gaules, torn. i. p. 158. Cologne, 1709. 




LIFE AM) LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGXE. 

to make charges of this nature, is apt to be the one most liable 
to them itself. Men at the court of Louis used to weep, if he 
turned his face from them. The bravest behaved like little boys 
before him, vying for his favour as children might do for an 
apple. Racine is said to have died of the fear of having 
offended him ; and Bussy, as we have before intimated, was 
not a whit behind the most pathetic of the servile, when he was 
again permitted to prostrate himself in the court circle. Madame 
de Sevigne probably felt on this occasion as every other woman 
would have felt, and was candid enough not to hide her emotion ; 
but whether, instead of pretending to feel less, she might not 
have pleasantly affected still more, in order to regain her self- 
possession, and so carry it off with a grace, Bussy was not the 
man to tell us, even if his wit had had good-nature enough to 
discern it. 

The young widow devoted herself to her children, and would 
never again hear of marriage. r ^She had already become celebrated 
for her letters ; continued to go occasionally to court ; and fre- 
quented the reigning literary circles, then famous for their 
pedantry, without being carried away by it. Several wits and 
men of fashion made love to her, besides Bussy. Among them 
were the learned Menage, who courted her in madrigals compiled 
from the Italian ; the superintendent of the finances, Fouquet, 
who, except in her instance and that of La Valliere, is said to 
have made Danaes wherever he chose to shower his gold ; and 
the Prince of Conti, brother of the great Conde, who, with the 
seif- sufficient airs of a royal lover, declared that he found her 
charming, and that he had " a word or two to say to her next 
winter." Even the great Turenne is said to have loved her. On 
none of them did she take pity but the superintendent ; and not 
on his heart, poor man, but on his neck ; when he was threatened 
with the axe for his doing as his predecessors had done, and 
squandering the public money. Fouquet was magnificent and 
popular in his dishonesty, and hence the envious conspired to pull 
him down. Some of the earliest letters of Madame de Sevigne 
are on the subject of his trial, and show an interest in it so 
genuine, that fault has been found with them for not being so 
witty as the rest ! 

It was probably from this time that she began to visit the 
court less frequently, and to confine herself to those domestic 
and accomplished circles, in which, without suspecting it, she 
cultivated an immortal reputation for letter-writing. Her political 



LIFE AND LETTEKS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNil. 377 

and religious friends, the De Retzes and the Jansenists, grew out 
of favour, or rather into discredit, and she perhaps suffered her- 
self to grow out of favour with them. She always manifested, 
however, great respect for the King ; and Louis was a man of too 
genuine a gallantry not to be courteous to the lady whenever they 
met, and address to her a few gracious words. On one occasion 
she gazed upon the magnificent gaming-tables at court, and 
curtseyed to his Majesty, after the fashion which her daughter," 
she says, "had taught her;" upon which the monarch was 
pleased to bow, and look very acknowledging. And, another 
time, when Madame de Maintenon, the Pamela of royalty, then 
queen in secret, presided over the religious amusements of the 
King, she went to see Racine's play of Esther performed by the 
young ladies of St. Cyr; when Louis politely expressed his hope 
that she was satisfied, and interchanged a word v/ith her in 
honour of the poet and the performers. She was not indeed at 
any time an uninterested observer of what took place in the 
world. She has other piquant, though not always very lucid 
notices of the court — was deeply interested in the death of 
Turenne — listens with emotion to the eloquence of the favourite 
preachers — records the atrocities of the poisoners, and is com- 
pelled by her good sense to leave off wasting her pity on the 
devout dulness of King James II. But the proper idea of her, 
for the greater part of her life, is that of a sequestered domestic 
woman, the delight of her friends, the constant reader, talker, 
laugher, and writer, and the passionate admirer of the daughter 
to whom she addressed the chief part of her correspondence. 
Sometimes she resided in Brittany, at an estate on the sea-coast, 
called the Rocks ? which had belonged to her husband ; sometimes 
she was at Livry, near Paris, where the good uncle possessed his 
abbey ; sometimes at her own estate of Bourbilly, in Burgundy ; 
and at others in her house in town, where the Hotel Carnavalet 
(now a school) has become celebrated as her latest and best- 
known residence. In all these abodes, not excepting the town- 
house, she made a point of having the enjoyment of a garden, 
delighting to be as much in the open air as possible, haunting her 
green alleys and her orangeries with a book in her hand or a 
song upon her lips (for she sang as she went about, like a child), 
and walking out late by moonlight in all seasons, to the hazard 
of colds and rheumatisms, from which she ultimately suffered 
severely. She was a most kind mistress to her tenants. She 
planted trees, made labyrinths, built chapels (inscribing them 



378 LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGXE. 

" to God "), watched the peasants dancing, sometimes played at 
chess (she did not like cards), and at almost all other times, 
when not talking with her friends, she was reading or hearing 
others read, or writing letters. The chief books and authors we 
hear of are Ta'sso, Ariosto, La Fontaine, Pascal, Nicole, Tacitus, 
the huge old romances, Rabelais, Rochefoucauld, the novels of 
her friend Madame cle la Fayette, Corneille, Bourdaloue and 
Bossuet, Montaigne, Lucian, Don Quixote, and St. Augustin : a 
goodly collection surely ; a " circle of humanity." She reads the 
romances three times over ; and when she is not sure that her 
correspondent will approve a book, says that her son has " brought 
her into it," or that he reads out " passages." Sometimes her 
household get up a little surprise or masquerade ; at others, her 
cousin Coulanges brings his "song-book," and they are "the 
happiest people in the world;" that is to say, provided her 
daughter is with her. Otherwise, the tears rush into her eyes at 
the thought of her absence, and she is always making " dragons " 
or "cooking," — viz. having the blue-devils and fretting. But, 
when they all are comfortable, what they are most addicted to is 
" dying with laughter." They die with laughter if seeing a 
grimace ; if told a bon-mot ; if witnessing a rustic dance ; if 
listening to Monsieur de Pomenars, who has always " some 
criminal affair on his hands ; " if getting drenched with rain : if 
having a sore finger pinched instead of relieved. Here lounges 
the young marquis on the sofa with his book ; there sits the old 
abbe in his arm-chair, fed with something nice ; the ladies chat, 
and embroider, and banter Mademoiselle du Plessis ; in comes 
Monsieur de Pomenars, with the news of some forgery that is 
charged against him, or livelier offence, but always so perilous to 
his neck that he and they " die with laughter." Enter, with his 
friend Madame de la Fayette, the celebrated Duke de la Roche- 
foucauld, gouty, but still graceful, and he and the lady " die with 
laughter;" enter the learned Corbinelli, and he dies; enter 
Madame de Coulanges, the sprightly mixture of airiness and 
witty malice, and she dies of course ; and the happy mortality 
is completed by her husband, the singing cousin aforesaid — " a 
little round fat oily man," who was always " in " with some duke 
or cardinal, admiring his fine house and feasting at his table. 
These were among the most prominent friends . or associates of 
Madame de Sevigne ; but there were also great lords and ladies, 
and neighbours in abundance, sometimes coming in when they 
were not wanted, but always welcomed with true French polite- 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGN^. 379 

ness, except when they had been heard to say anything against 
the " daughter; " and then Madame told them roundly to their 
faces that she was "not at home." There was Segrais, and 
Saint Pavin, and Corneille, and Bossuet ; and Treyille, who 
talked like a book ; and the great Turenne, and the Duke de 
Vivonne (brother of Monte span), who called her " darling 
mamma;" and Madame Scarron, till she was Maintenon ; 
and Madame de Fiesque, who did not know how to be afflicted ; 
and D'Hacqueville, whose good offices it was impossible to 
tire ; and fat Barillon, who said good things though he was a 
bad ambassador ; and the Abbe Tetu, thin and lively ; and Ben- 
serade, who was the life of the company wherever he went ; and 
Brancas, who liked to choose his own rivals ; and Cardinal de 
Retz in retirement, feeding his trout, and talking metaphysics. 
She had known the Cardinal for thirty years ; and, during his 
last illness, used to get Corneille, Boileau, and Moliere to come 
and read to him their new pieces. Perhaps there is no man of 
whom she speaks with such undeviating respect and regard as 
this once turbulent statesman, unless it be Rochefoucauld, who, 
to judge from most of her accounts of him, was a pattern of all 
that was the reverse of his " Maxims." 

With her son the marquis, who was "a man of wit and 
pleasure about town," till he settled into sobriety with a wife who 
is said to have made him devout, Madame de Sevigne lived in a 
state of confidence and unreserve, to an excess that would not be 
deemed very delicate in these clays, and of which, indeed, she 
herself sometimes expresses her dislike. There is a well-known 
collection of letters, professing to have passed between him and 
Ninon de l'Enclos, which is spurious ; but we gather some 
remarkable particulars of their intimacy from the letters of the 
mother to her daughter ; and, among others, Ninon's sayings of 
him, that he had " a soul of pap," and the " heart of a cucumber 
fried in snow." 

The little marquis's friends (for he was small in his person) 
did not think him a man of very impassioned temperament. He 
was, however, very pleasant and kind, and an attentive son. 
He had a strong contempt, too, for " the character of JEneas," and 
the merit of never having treated Bussy Rabutin with any great 
civility. Rochefoucauld said of him, that his greatest ambition 
would have been to die for a love which he did not feel. He was 
at first in the army, but not being on the favourite side either in 
politics or religion, nor probably very active, could get no prefer- 



380 LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEYIGNi:. 

meut worth having ; so he ended in living unambitiously in a 
devout corner of Paris, and cultivating his taste for literature. 
He maintained a contest of some repute with Dacier, on the 
disputable meaning of the famous passage in Horace, Difficile est 
proprie commtmia dicere. His treatise on the subject may be 
found in the later Paris editions of his mother's letters ; but the 
juxtaposition is not favourable to its perusal. 

But sons, dukes, cardinals, friends, the whole universe, come 
to nothing in these famous letters, compared with the daughter to 
whom they owe their existence. She had not the good spirits of 
her mother, but she had wit and observation ; and appears to 
have been so liberally brought up, that she sometimes startled 
her more acquiescent teacher with the hardihood of her specula- 
tions. It is supposed to have been owing to a scruple of con- 
science in her descendants, that her part of the correspondence 
was destroyed. She professed herself, partly in jest and partly 
in earnest, a zealous follower of Descartes. It is curious that 
the circumstance which gave rise to the letters, was the very one 
to which Madame de Sevigne had looked for saving her the 
necessity of correspondence. The young lady became the wife of 
a great lord, the Count de Grignan, who, being a man of the 
court, was expected to continue to reside in Paris ; so that the 
mother trusted she should always have her daughter at hand. 
The count, however, who was lieutenant-governor of Provence, 
received orders, shortly afterwards, to betake himself to that 
distant region : the continued non-residence of the Duke de 
Yendume, the governor, conspired to keep him there, on and off, 
for the remainder of the mother's existence — a space of six-and- 
twenty years ; and though she contrived to visit and be visited 
by Madame de Grignan so often that they spent nearly half the 
time with each other, yet the remaining years were a torment to 
Madame de Sevigne, which nothing could assuage but an almost 
incessant correspondence. One letter was no sooner received 
than another was anxiously desired ; and the daughter echoed the 
anxiety. Hours were counted, post-boys watched for, obstacles 
imagined, all the torments experienced, and not seldom mani- 
fested, of the most jealous and exacting passion, and at the same 
time all the delights and ecstasies vented of one the most con- 
fiding. But what we have to say of this excess of maternal 
Jove will be better kept for our concluding remarks. Suifice it to 
observe, in hastening to give our specimens of the letters, that 
these graver points of the correspondence, though numerous, 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIG1\E. 381 

occupy but a small portion of it ; that the letters, generally 
speaking, consist of the amusing gossip and conversation which 
the mother would have had with the daughter, had the latter 
remained near her ; and that Madame de Sevigne, after living, as 
it were, for no other purpose than to write them, and to straiten 
herself in her circumstances for both her children, died at her 
daughter's house in Provence, of an illness caused by the fatigue 
of nursing her through one of her own. Her decease took place 
in April, 1696, in the seventieth year of her age. Her body, it 
is said, long after, was found dressed in ribbons, after a Pro- 
vencal fashion, at which she had expressed great disgust. Madame 
de Grignan did not survive many years. She died in the summer 
of 1705, of grief, it has been thought, for the loss of her only 
child, the Marquis de Grignan, in whom the male descendants of 
the family became extinct. It is a somewhat unpleasant evidence 
of the triumph of Ninon de l'Enclos over the mortality of her con- 
temporaries, that, in one of the letters of the correspondence, this 
youth, the grandson of Madame de Sevigne's husband, and 
nephew of her son, is found studying good breeding at the table 
of that "grandmother of the Loves." The Count de Grignan, 
his father, does not appear to have been a very agreeable 
personage. Mademoiselle de Sevigne was his third wife. He 
was, therefore, not very young ; he was pompous and fond of 
expense, and brought duns about her ; and his face w T as plain, and 
it is said that he did not make up for his ill looks by the virtue of 
constancy. Madame de Sevigne seems to have been laudably 
anxious to make the best of her son-in-law. She accordingly 
compliments him on his " fine tenor voice ; " and, because he has 
an uncomely face, is always admiring his " figure." One cannot 
help suspecting sometimes that there is a little malice in her 
intimations of the contrast, and that she admires his figure most 
when he will not let her daughter come to see her. The count's 
only surviving child, Pauline, became the wife of Louis de 
Simiane, Marquis d'Esparron, who seems to have been connected 
on the mother's side with our family of the Hays, and was lieu- 
tenant of the Scottish horse-guards in the service of the French 
king. Madame de Simiane inherited a portion both of the look 
and wit of her grandmother ; but more resembled her mother in 
gravity of disposition. A daughter of hers married the Marquis 
de Yence ; and of this family there are descendants now living ; 
but the names of Grignan, Eabutin, and Sevigne, have long been 
extinct — in the body. In spirit they are now before us, more 



382 LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 

real than myriads of existing families ; and we proceed to enjoy 
their deathless company. 

We shall not waste the reader's time with the history of 
editions, and telling how the collection first partially transpired 
" against the consent of friends." Friends and familiars are too 
often afraid, or ashamed, or jealous, of what afterwards consti- 
tutes their renown ; and we can only rejoice that the sweet 
" winged word's" of the most flowing of pens, escaped, in this 
instance, out of their grudging boxes. We give the letters in 
English instead of French, not being by any means of opinion 
that " all who read and appreciate Madame de Sevigne, may be 
supposed to understand that language nearly as well as their 
own." Undoubtedly, people of the best natural understandings 
are glad, when, in addition to what nature has given them, they 
possess, in the knowledge of a foreign language, the best means 
of appreciating the wit that has adorned it. But it is not impos- 
sible that some such people, nay many, in this age of " diffusion 
of knowledge," may have missed the advantages of a good educa- 
tion, and yet be able to appreciate the imperfectly conveyed wit 
of another, better than some who are acquainted with its own 
vehicle. Besides, we have known very distinguished people 
confess, that all who read, or even speak French, do not always 
read it with the same ready result and comfort to the eyes of 
their understandings as they do their own language ; and as to 
the " impossibility " of translating such letters as those of 
Madame de Sevigne, though the specimens hitherto published 
have not been very successful, we do not believe it. Phrases 
here and there may be so ; difference of manners may render 
some few untranslateable in so many words, or even unintelligible ; 
but for the most part the sentences will find their equivalents, if 
the translator is not destitute of the spirits that suggested them. 
We ourselves have been often given to understand, that we have 
been too much in the habit of assuming that French, however 
widely known, was still more known than it is ; and we shall 
endeavour, on the present occasion, to make an attempt to 
include the whole of our readers in the participation of a rare 
intell e ctual pleasure . 

The first) letter in the Collection, w f ritten when Madame de 
Sevigne was a young and happy mother, gives a delightful fore- 
taste of what its readers have to expect. She was then in her 
twentieth year, with a baby in her arms, and nothing but bright- 
ness in her eyes. 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 383 

" TO THE COUNT DE BUSSY EABUTIN. 

"March 15th (1647*). 

" You are a pretty fellow, are you not ? to have written me nothing for 
these two months. Have you forgotten who I am, and the rank I hold in 
the family ? 'Faith, little cadet, I will make you remember it. If you 
put me out of sorts, I will reduce you to the ranks. You knew I was 
about to be confined, and yet took no more trouble to ask after my health 
thau if I had remained a spinster. Very well : be informed^ to your con- 
fusion, that I have got a boy, who shall suck hatred of you into his veins 
with his mother's milk, and that I mean to have a great many more, purely 
to supply you with enemies. You have not the wit to do as much, you 
with your feminine productions. 

" After all, my dear cousin, my regard for you is not to be concealed. 
Nature will proclaim it in spite of art. I thought to scold you for your 
laziness through the whole of this letter ; but I do my heart too great a 
violence ; and must conclude with telling you, that M. de Sevigne and 
myself love you very much, and often talk of the pleasure we should have 
in your company." 

Bussy writes very pleasantly in return ; but it will be so 
impossible to make half the extracts we desire from Madame de 
Sevigne's own letters, that we must not be tempted to look again 
into those of others. The next that we shall give is the famous 
one on the Duke de Lauzun's intended marriage with the Princess 
Henrietta of Bourbon ; one of the most striking, though not the 
most engaging, in the collection. We might have kept it for a 
climax, were it not desirable to preserve a chronological order. It 
was written nearly four- and- twenty years after the letter we have 
just given ; which we mention to show how she had retained her 
animal spirits. The person to whom it is addressed is her jovial 
cousin, De Coulanges. The apparent tautologies in the exordium 
are not really such. They only represent a continued astonish- 
ment, wanting words to express itself, and fetching its breath at 
every comma : — 

"to moxs. de coulanges. 

*" Paris, Monday, loth December (1670). 
" I am going to tell you a thing, which of all things in the world is the 
most astonishing, the most surprising, the most marvellous, the most 
miraculous, the most triumphant, the most bewildering, the most unheard- 
of, the most singular, the most extraordinary, the most incredible, the most 
unexpected, the most exalting, the most humbling, the most rare, the most 
common, the most public, the most private (till this moment), the most 
brilliant, the most enviable — in short, a thing of which no example is to 
be found in past times ; at least, nothing quite like it ; — a thing which we 

* Madame de Sevigne never, in dating her letters, gave the years. 
They were added by one of her editors. 



)84 LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGl^L 






know not how to believe in Paris ; how then are you to believe it at Lyons ? 
a thing which makes all the world cry out, ' Lord have mercy on us !' a 
thing which has transported Madame de Rohan and Madame dHauterive ; 
a tiling which is to be done on Sunday, when those who see it will 
not believe their own eyes ; a thing which is to be done on Sunday, 
and yet perhaps will not be finished till Monday. I cannot expect 
you to £uess it at once. I give you a trial of three times ; do you give it 
vp ? Well, then, I must tell you. M. de Lauzun is to marry, next Sunday, 
at the Louvre, guess whom ? I give you four times to guess it in : I give 
you six : I give you a hundred. ' Truly/ cries Madame de Coulanges, ' it 
must be a very difficult thing to guess ; 'tis Madame de la Valliere.' No, 
it isn't, Madame. * 'Tis Mademoiselle de Eetz then?' No, it isn't, 
Madame : you are terribly provincial. < Oh, we are very stupid, no doubt ! ' 
Bay you : ''tis Mademoiselle Colbert.' Further off than ever. 'Well, then, 
it must be Mademoiselle de Crequi ? ' You are not a bit nearer. Come, I 
see I must tell you at last. Well, M. de Lauzun marries, next Sunday, at 

the Louvre, with the King's permission, Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle de 

Mademoiselle guess the name ; — he marries 'Mademoiselle' — the 

great Mademoiselle ! Mademoiselle, the daughter of the late Monsieur ; 
Mademoiselle, grand-daughter of Henry the Fourth ; Mademoiselle d'Eu, 
]\ I a demoiselle de Dombes, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Mademoiselle 
<T Orleans, Mademoiselle, cousin-german of the King, Mademoiselle destined 
to the throne, Mademoiselle, the only woman in France fit to marry Mon- 
sieur. Here's pretty news for your coteries. Exclaim about it as much 
as you will ; — let it turn your heads ; say we ' lie' if you please ; that it's 
a pretty joke ; that it's ' tiresome ; ' that we are a ' parcel of ninnies.' We 
give you leave ; we have done just the same to others. Adieu ! The 
letters that come by the post will show whether we have been speaking 
truth or not." 

Never was French vivacity more gay, more spirited, more 
triumphant, than in this letter. There is a regular siege laid to 
the reader's astonishment ; and the titles of the bride come like 
the pomp of victory. Or, to use a humbler image, the reader is 
thrown into the state of the child, who is told to open his mouth 
and shut his eyes, and wait for what God will send him. The 
holder of the secret hovers in front of the expectant, touching his 
lips and giving him nothing ; and all is a merry flutter of 
laughter, guessing, and final transport. And yet this will not 
suit the charming misgiving that follows. Alas, for the poor 
subject of the wonder ! The marriage was stopped ; it was sup- 
posed to have taken place secretly ; and Mademoiselle, who was 
then forty-live years of age, and had rejected kings, is said to 
have found her husband so brutal, that he one day called to her, 
11 Henrietta of Bourbon, pull of! my boots." The boots were left 
on, and the savage discarded. 

The letter we give next — or rather, of which we give passages 
— is a good specimen of the way in which the writer goes from 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE ffl£viGX£. 385 

subject to subject ; — from church to the fair, and from the fair to 
court, and to mad dogs, and Ninon de l'Enclos, and sermons on 
death, and so round again to royalty and "a scene," It is 
addressed to her daughter :— 

" TO MADAME DE GEIGX AN. 

" Paris, Friday, March 13 (1671). 

" Behold me, to the delight of my heart, all alone in my chamber, 
writing to you in tranquillity. Nothing gives me comfort like being seated 
thus. I dined to-day at Madame de Lavardin's, after having been to hear 
Bourdaloue, where I saw the Mothers of the Church ; for so I call the 
Princess de Conti and Longueville.* All the world was at the sermon^ 
and the sermon was worthy of all that heard it. I thought of you twenty 
times, and wished you as often beside me. You would have been enchanted 
to be a listener, and I should have been tenfold enchanted to see 
you listen. ***** -yy e nave been to the fair, to see a great 
fright of a woman, bigger than Riberpre, by a whole head. She lay-in the 
other day of two vast infants, who came into the world abreast, with their 
arms a-kimbo. You never beheld such a tout-ensemble / * * * And 
now, if you fancy all the maids of honour run mad, you will not fancy 
amiss. Eight days ago, Madame de Ludre, Coetlogon, and little De 
Rouvroi were bitten by a puppy belonging to Theobon, and the puppy has 
died mad ^-so Lndre, Coetlogon, and De Rouvroi set off this morning for 
the coast, to be clipped three times in the sea. ? Tis a dismal journey : 
Benserade is in despair about it. Theobon does not choose to go, thoug;h 
she had a little bite too. The queen, however, objects to her being in 
waiting till the issue of the adventure is known, Don't you think Ludre 
resembles Andromeda ? For my part, I see her fastened to the rock, and 
Treville coining, on a winged horse, to deliver her from the monster. ' Ah, 
Zeesus ! Madame de Grignan, vat a sing to be trown all naket into te 
sea ! ' ?; f 

«* * * Your brother is under the jurisdiction of Mnon. I cannot 
think it will do him much good. There are people to whom it does no 
good at all. She hurt his father. Heaven help him, say I ! It is im- 
possible for Christian people, or at least for such as would fain be Chris- 
tian, to look on such disorders without concern. Ah, Bourdaloue ! what 
divine truths you told us to=day about death. Madame de la Payette heard 
him for the first time in her life, and was transported with admiration. 
She is enchanted with your remembrances. * * - ■* A scene took place 
yesterday at Mademoiselle's, which I enjoyed extremely. In comes Madame 
de Gevres, full of her airs arid graces. She looked as if she expected I 
should give her my post ; but, faith, I owed her an affront for her beha- 
viour the other day, so I didn't budge. Mademoiselle was in bed ; Madame 
de Gevres was therefore obliged to go lower down ; no very pleasant thing 

* Great sinners, who had become great saints. 

f " Ah, Zesu ! Madame de Grignan, Cetrange sose Vetre zettee toute nue 
tans la mer." Madame de Ludre, by her pronunciation, was either a very 
affected speaker, or seems to have come from the " borders." Madame de 
Sevigne, by the tone of her narration, could hardly have believed there was 
anvthins: serious in the accident, 

25 



38G LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEYIGXE. 

that. Mademoiselle calls for drink ; somebody must present the napkin ; 
Madame de Gevres begins to draw off the glove from her skinny hand ; I 
give a nudge to Madame d'Arpajon, who was above me ; she understands 
me, draws off her own glove, and, advancing a step with a very good grace, 
cuts short the duchess, and takes and presents the napkin. The duchess 
was quite confounded ; she had made her way up, and got off her gloves, 
and all to sec the napkin presented before her by Madame d'Arpajon. My 
dear, I'm a wicked creature ; I was in a state of delight ; and, indeed, 
what could have been better done ? Would any one but Madame de 
Gevres have thought of depriving Madame d'Arpajon of an honour which 
fell so naturally to her share, standing, as she did, by the bedside ? It was 
as good as a cordial to Madame de Puisieux. Mademoiselle did not dare 
to lift up her eyes ; and, as for myself, I had the most good-for-nothing 
face." 

Had Madame de Gevres seen the following passage in a 
letter of the 10th of June, in the same year, it might have 
tempted her to exclaim, " Ah, you see what sort of people it is 
that treat me with malice ! " — It must have found an echo in 
thousands of bosoms ; and the conclusion of the extract is 
charming : — 

« * * * My dear, I wish very much I could be religious. I plague 
La Mousse about it every day. I belong at present neither to God nor 
devil, and I find this condition very uncomfortable ; though, between you 
and me, I think it the most natural in the world. One does not belong to 
the devil, because one fears God, and has at bottom a principle of religion ; 
but then, on the other hand, one does not belong to God, because his laws 
appear hard, and self-denial is not pleasant. Hence the great number of 
the lukewarm, which does not surprise me at all. I enter perfectly into 
their reasons ; only God, you know, hates them, and that must not be. 
But there lies the difficulty. Why must I torment you, however, with 
these endless rhapsodies ? My dear child, I ask your pardon, as they say 
in these parts. I rattle on in your company, and forget everything else in 
the pleasure of it. Don't make me any answer. Send me only news of 
your health, with a spice of what you feel at Grignan, that I may know 
you are happy ; that is all. Love me. We have turned the phrase into 
ridicule ; but it is natural, it is good." 

The Abbe de la Mousse here mentioned was a connection of 
the Coulanges, and was on a visit to Madame de Sevigne at her 
house in Brittany, reading poetry and romance. The weather 
was so rainy and cold, that we of this island are pleased to see 
one of her letters dated from her " fireside" on the 24th of June. 
Pomenars, the criminal gentleman who was always afraid of losing 
his head, was one of her neighbours ; and another was the before- 
mentioned Mademoiselle du Plessis, whom the daughter's aver- 
sion and her own absurdities conspired to render the butt of the 
mother. It is said of Pomenars, who was a marquis, that having 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGN^. 387 

been tried for uttering false money, and cleared of the charge, he 
paid the expenses of the action in the same coin. It must have 
been some very counteracting good quality, however, in addition 
to his animal spirits, that kept his friends in good heart with 
him ; for Madame de Sevigne never mentions him but with an 
air of delight. He was, at this moment, under a charge of 
abduction ; not, apparently, to any very great horror on the part 
of the ladies. Madame de Sevigne, however, tells her daughter 
that she talked to him about it very seriously, adding the jest, 
nevertheless, that the state of the dispute between him and his 
accuser was, that the latter wanted to " have his head," and 
Pomenars would not let him take it. " The Marquis," she says, 
in another letter, " declined shaving till he knew to whom his 
head was to belong." The last thing we remember of him is his 
undergoing a painful surgical operation ; after which he rattled 
on as if nothing had happened. But then he had been the clay 
before to Bourdaloue, to confess, for the first time during eight 
years. Here is the beginning of a letter, in which he and Du 
Pies sis are brought delightfully together : — 

" TO MADAME DE GRIGNA^. 

" The Rocks, Sunday, 26th July (1671). 
" You must know, that as I was sitting all alone in my chamber yester- 
day, intent upon a book, I saw the door opened by a tall lady-like woman, 
who was ready to choke herself with laughing. Behind her came a man, 
who laughed louder still, and the man was followed by a very well-shaped 
woman, who laughed also. As for me, I began to laugh before I knew 
who they were, or what had set them a-laughing ; and though I was 
expecting Madame de Chaulnes to spend a day or two with me here, I 
looked a long time before I could think it was she. She it was, however ; 
and with her she had brought Pomenars, who had put it in her head to 
surprise me. The fair Murinette * was of the party ; and Pomenars was 
in such excessive spirits that he would have gladdened melancholy itself. 
They fell to playing battledoor and shuttlecock — Madame de Chaulnes 
plays it like you ; and then came a lunch, and then we took one of our 
nice little walks, and the talk was of you throughout. I told Pomenars 
how you took all his affairs to heart, and what relief you would experience 
had he nothing to answer to but the matter in hand ; but that such 
repeated attacks on his innocence quite overwhelmed you. We kept up 
this joke till the long walk reminded us of the fall you got there one day, 
the thought of which made me as red as fire. We talked a long time of 
that, and then of the dialogue with the gypsies, and at last of Mademoi- 
selle du Plessis, and the nonsensical stuff she uttered ; and how, one day, 
having treated you with some of it, and her ugly face being close to yours, 
you made no more ado, but gave her such a box on the ear as staggered 

* Mademoiselle de Murinais. 



(388 LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGN^. 

her ; upon which I, to soften matters, exclaimed, * How rudely these young 
people do play !' and then, turning to her motner, said, ' Madam, do you 
know they were so wild this morning, they absolutely fought. Mademoi- 
selle du P essis provoked my daughter, and my daughter beat her : it was 
one of the merriest scenes in the world ;' and with this turn Madame dii 
P;es?is was so delighted, that she expressed her satisfaction at seeing the 
young ladies so happy together. This trait of good-fellowship becween 
you and Mademoiselle du Plessis, whom I lumped together to make the 
box on the ear go down, made my visitors die with laughter. Mademoi- 
selle de Muriuais, in particular, approved your proceedings mightily, and 
vows that the first time Du Plessis thrusts her nose in her face, as she 
always does when she speaks to anybody, she will follow your example, and 
£ive her a good slap on the chaps. I expect them all to meet before Ions: ; 
Pomenars is to set the matter on foot ; Mademoiselle is sure to fall in with 
it ; a letter from Paris is to be produced, showing how the ladies there 
give boxes on the ears to one another, and this will sanction the custom in 
the provinces, and even make us desire them, in order to be in the fashion. 
In short, I never saw a man so mad as Pomenars : his spirits increase in 
the ratio of his criminalities ; and, if he is charged with another, he will 
certainly die for joy." 

These practical mystifications of poor Mademoiselle du Plessis 
are a little strong. They would assuredly not take place nowa- 
days in society equal to that of Madame de Sevigne ; but ages 
profit by their predecessors, and the highest breeding of one often 
becomes but second-rate in the next. If anything, however, 
could warrant such rough admission to the freedom of a superior 
circle, it was the coarse platitudes and affectations of an uncouth 
neighbour like this ; probably of a family as vulgar as it was rich, 
and which had made its way into a society unfit for it. Made- 
moiselle du Plessis seems to have assumed all characters in turn, 
and to have suited none except that of an avowed yet incorrigible 
teller of fibs. Madame Sevigne spoke to her plainly one day 
about these peccadilloes, and Mademoiselle cast down her eyes 
and said with an air of penitence, "Ah, yes, madam, it is very 
true ; I am indeed the greatest liar in the world : I am very much 
obliged to you for telling me of it ! " "It was exactly," says her 
reprover, " like TartuHe — quite in his tone — Yes, brother, I am 
a miserable sinner, a vessel of iniquity." Yet a week or two 
afterwards, giving an account of a family weddiug-dinner, she 
said that the first course, for one day, included twelve hundred 
dishes. "We all sate petrified," says Madame de Sevigne. 
" At length I took courage and said, 4 Consider a little, Made- 
moiselle, you must mean twelve, not twelve hundred. One some- 
times has slips of the tongue.' ' Oh, no, Madam ! it was twelve 
hundred, or eleven hundred, I am quite sure ; I cannot say which, 



LIFE AND LETTEKS OF MADAME BE SEVIGN^l. 889 

for fear of telling a falsehood, but one or the other I know it 
was ;' and she repeated it twenty times, and would not bate us a 
single chicken. We found, upon calculation, that there must 
have been at least three hundred people to lard the fowls ; that 
the dinner must have been served up in a great meadow, in tents 
pitched for the occasion ; and that, supposing them only fifty, 
preparations must have been made a month beforehand." 

It is pleasant to bid adieu to Mademoiselle du Plessis, and 
breathe the air of truth, wit, and nature, in what has been justly 
called by the compiler of the work at the head of this article, 
one of " Madame de Sevigne's most charming letters."* The 
crime of the fine -gentleman servant who would not make hay, is 
set forth with admirable calmness and astonishment ; and never 
before was the art of haymaking taught, or rather exemplified, in 
words so simple and so few. It is as if the pen itself had be- 
come a hay-fork, and tossed up a sample of the sweet grass. 
The pretended self-banter also, at the close, respecting long- 
winded narrations, is exquisite :— 

" TO M. DE COULANGES. 

" The Rocks, 22nd July (1671). 
" I write, my dear cousin, over and above the stipulated fortnight com- 
munications, to advertise you that you will soon have the honour of seeing 
Picard ; and, as he is brother to the lacquey of Madame de Comanges, I 
must tell you the reason why. You know that Madame the Duchess dc 
Chaulnes is at Vitre : she expects the duke there, in ten or twelve days, 
with the States of Brittany. f Well, and what then ? say you. I say, that 
the duchess is expecting the duke with all the states, and that meanwhile 
she is at Vitre all alone, dying with ennui. And what, return you, has this 
to do with Picard ? Why, look ; she is dying with ennui, and I am her 
only consolation, and so you may readily conceive that I carry it with a high 
hand over Mademoiselle de Kerbonne and de Kerqueoison. A pretty round- 
about way ot telling my story, I must coniess ; but it will bring ua to the 
point. Well, then, as I am her only consolation, it follows to at, after I 
have been to see her, she will come to see me, when, of course, I shall wish 
her to find my garden in good order, and my walks in good order- — those 
fine walks, of which you are so fond. Still you are at a loss to conceive 
whither they are leading you now. Attend then, if you please, to a little 
suggestion by the way. You are aware that haymaking is going forward ? 
Weil, I have no haymakers : I send into the neighbouring fields to press 
them into my service ; there are none to be found ; and so all my own 
people are summoned to make hay instead. But do you know what hay- 
making is ? I will tell you. Haymaking is the prettiest thing m the 
world. You play at turning the grass over in a meadow ; and, as soon as 

* The original appears in the Lettres Choisits, edited by Girauli 
f He was governor of the province. 



390 LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGXE. 

yon know how to do that, you know how to make hay. The whole house 
went merrily to the task, all but Picard : he said he would not go ; that he 
was not engaged for such work ; that it was none of his business ; and that 
he would sooner betake himself to Paris. 'Faith ! didn't I get angry ? 
It was the hundredth disservice the silly fellow had done me : I saw he had 
neither heart nor zeal ; in short, the measure of his offence was full. I 
took him at his word ; was deaf as a rock to all entreaties in his behalf; 
and he has set ofT. It is fit that people should be treated as they deserve. 
If you see him, don't welcome him ; don't protect him; and don't blame 
me. Only look upon him as, of all servants in the world, the one the least 
addicted to haymaking, and therefore the most unworthy of good treat- 
ment. This is the sum total of the affair. As for me, I am fond of 
straightforward histories, that contain not a word too much ; that never go 
wandering about, and beginning ayain from remote points ; and accord- 
ingly, I think I may say, without vanity, that I hereby present you with the 
model of an agreeable narration," 

In the course of the winter following this haymaking, Madame 
de Sevigne goes to Paris ; and with the exception of an occasional 
visit to the house at Livry, to refresh herself with the spring- 
blossoms and the nightingales, remains there till July, when she 
visits her daughter in Provence, where she stayed upwards of a 
year, and then returned to the metropolis. It is not our intention 
to notice these particulars in future ; but we mention them in 
passing, to give the reader an idea of the round of her life 
between her town and country houses, and the visits to Madame 
de Grignan, who sometimes came from Provence to her. In the 
country, she does nothing but read, write, and walk, and occa- 
sionally see her neighbours. In town, she visits friends, theatres, 
churches, nunneries, and the court ; is now at the Coulanges', 
now dining with Rochefoucauld, now paying her respects to some 
branch of royalty ; and is delighted, and delighting wherever she 
goes, except when she is weeping for her daughter's absence, or 
condoling with the family disasters resulting from campaigns. In 
the summer of 1672 was the famous passage of the Rhine, at 
which Rochefoucauld lost a son, whose death he bore with affect- 
ing patience. The once intriguing but now devout princess, the 
Duchess de Longueville, had the like misfortune, which she could 
not endure so well. Her grief nevertheless was very affecting 
too, and Madame de Sevigne's plain and passionate account of it 
has been justly admired. In general, at the court of Louis XIV. 
all was apparently ease, luxury, and delight (with the exception 
of the jealousies of the courtiers and the squabble of the mis- 
tresses), but every now and then there is a campaign — and then 
all is glory, and finery, and lovers' tears, when the warriors are 



LIFE AHD Li. f MADAME DE SEVIGN&. 391 

setting out ; and fright, and trepidation, and distracting suspense, 
when the news arrives of a bloody battle. The suspense is re- 
moved by undoubted intelligence ; and then, while some are in 
paroxysms of pride and rapture at escapes, and exploits, and 
lucky wounds, others are plunged into misery by deaths : — 

EXTRACT FROM A LETTER TO MADAME DE GRIGNAN. 

•• Yon never saw Paris in such a state as it is now ; everybody is hi 

tears, or fears to be so : poor Madame deNogent is beside herself j Madame 

de Longnevi lie, with her lamentations, ci to the heart. I have 

:i her ; but you may rely on what follows. * * * * They sent 

-Royal foT M. Arnaald and Mademoiselle Vertus to break the news 

to her. The sight of the latter was sufficient. As soon as the duchess saw 

her — • Ah 1 1 my brother ? ' (the great Conde). She 

sk further. ' Madame, his w ing on well ; there 

has been a battle. 3 'And my son? 3 Xo answer. 'Ah! Mademoiselle, 

mild — answer me — is he dead ? ' ' Madame, I have not 

jwer you.' -Ah ! my dear son; did he die instantly ? had he 

not one little moment? Oh! great God, what a sacrifice ! ' And with 

he fell upon her bed; and ail which could express the most terrible 

anguish, convulsions, and farmings, and a mortal silence, and stifled cries, 

and the bitterest tears, and hands clasped towards heaven, and complaints 

the most tender and heart-rending — all this did she go through. She sees 

-lends, and keeps herself barely alive, in submission to God's will ; 

but has no rest ; and her health, which was bad already, is visibly worse. 

For my part, I cannot help wishing her dead outright, not conceiving it 

possible that she can survive such a loss." 

We have taken no notice of the strange death of Vatel, 

steward to the Prince de Conde, who killed himself out of a point 
of honour, because a dinner had not been served up to his satis- 
q. It is a very curious relation, but more characteristic of 
the poor man than of the writer. For a like reason, we omit the 
interesting though horrible accounts of Brinvilliers and La Yoisin, 
the poisoners. But we cannot help giving a tragedy told in a few 
words, both because Madame de Sevigne was herself highly struck 
with it, and for another reason which will appear in a note : — 

M The other day, on his coming into a ball-room, a gentleman of Brittany 
was assassinated by two men in women's clothes. One held him while the 
other deliberately struck a poniard to his heart. Little Harouis, who was 
there, was shocked at beholding this person, whom he knew well, stretched 
out upon the ground, full-dressed, bloody, and dead. His account" (adds 
Madame de Sevigne) "forcibly struck my imagination.' 5 * 

* TTe have taken the words in Italics from the version of the letters 
published in 1765, often a rery meritorious one, probably •'•' by various 
hands," some passages exhibiting an ignorance of the commonest terms, 
hardly possible to be reconciled with a knowledge of the rest. 



392 LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGSE. 

The following letter contains a most graphic description of 
the French court, in all its voluptuous gaiety ; and the glimpses 
which it furnishes of the actors on the brilliant scene, from the 
King and the favourite to Dangeau, the skilful gamester — cool, 
collected, and calculating — amidst the gallant prattle around him, 
give to its details a degree of life and animation not to be sur- 
passed : — 

"TO MADAME DE GRIGNAN. 

"Paris, Wednesday, 29th July (1676). 
" We have a change of the scene here, which will gratify you as much 
as it does all the world. I was at Versailles last Saturday with the 
Villarses. You know the Queen's toilet, the mass, and the dinner ? Well, 
there is no need any longer of suffocating ourselves in the crowd to get a 
glimpse of their majesties at table. At three the King, the Queen, 
Monsieur, Madame, Mademoiselle, and everything else which is royal, 
together with Madame de Montespan and train, and all the courtiers, and 
all the ladies — all, in short, which constitutes the court of France— is 
assembled in that beautiful apartment of the king's, which you remember. 
All is furnished divinely, all is magnificent. Such a thing as heat is 
unknown ; you pass from one place to another without the slightest pressure. 
A game at reversis gives the company a form and a settlement. The King 
and Madame de Montespan keep a bank together ; different tables arc 
occupied by Monsieur, the Queen, and Madame de Soubise, Dangeau* and 
party, Langlee and party :— everywhere you see heaps of louis-d'ors, they 
have no other counters. I saw Dangeau play, and thought what fools we 
all were beside him. He dreams of nothing but what concerns the game ; 
he wins where others lose ; he neglects nothing, profits by everything, never 
has his attention diverted ; in short, his science bids defiance to chance. 
Two hundred thousand francs in ten days, a hundred thousand crowns in 
a month — these are the pretty memorandums he puts down in his pocket- 
book. He was kind enough to say that I was partners with him, so that I 
got an excellent seat. I made my obeisance to the King, as you told me ; 
and he returned it, as if I had been young and handsome. The Queen 
talked as long to me about my illness, as if it had been a lying-in. The 
Duke said a thousand kind things without minding a word he uttered. 
Marshal de Lorges attacked me in the name of the Chevalier de Grignan ; 
in short, tutti quanti (the whole company). You know what it is to get a 
word from everybody you meet. Madame de Montespan talked to me of 
Bourbon, and asked me how I liked Vichi, and whether the place did me 
good. She said that Bourbon, instead of curing a pain in one of her knees, 
did mischief to both. Her size is reduced by a good half, and yet her com- 
plexion, her eyes, and her lips, are as fine as ever. She was dressed all in 
French point, her hair in a thousand ringlets, the two side ones hanging- 
low on her cheeks, black ribbons on her head, pearls (the same that 
belonged to Madame de l'Hopital), the loveliest diamond earrings, three or 
four bodkins— nothing else on the head ; in short, a triumphant beauty 
worthy the admiration of all the foreign ambassadors. She was accused of 

* The writer of the well-known Court Diary. 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVXGXE. 393 

preventing the whole French nation from seeing the King ; she has restored 
hiio, you see, to their eyes ; and you cannot conceive the joy it has given 
all the world, and the splendour it has thrown upon the court. This 
charming confusion, without confusion, of all which is the most select, 
continues from three till six. If couriers arrive, the King retires a moment 
to read the despatches, and returns, There is always some music going on, 
to which he listens, and which has an excellent effect. He talks with such 
of the ladies as are accustomed to enjoy that honour. In short, they leave 
play at six ; there is no trouble of counting, for there is no sort of counters ; 
the pools consist of at least five, perhaps six or seven hundred louis ; the 
bigger ones of a thousand or twelve hundred. At first each person pools 
twenty, which is a hundred ; and the dealer afterwards pools ten. The 
person who holds the knave is entitled to four louis ; they pass ; and when 
they play before the pool is taken, they forfeit sixteen, which teaches them 
not to play out of turn. Talking is incessantly going on, and there is no end 
of hearts. How many hearts have you ? I have two, I have three, I have one, 
I have four ; he has only three then, he has only four; — and Dangeau is 
delighted with all this chatter : he sees through the game — he draws his con- 
clusions — he discovers which is the person he wants ; truly he is your only 
man for holding the cards. At six, the carriages are at the door. The King 
is in one of them with Madame de Montespan, Monsieur and Madame de 
Thianges, and honest d'Heudicourt in a fool's paradise on the stool. You 
know how these open carnages are made ; they do not sit face to face, but all 
looking the same way. The Queen occupies another with the Princess ; and 
the rest come flocking after as it may happen. There are then gondolas on 
the canal, and music ; and at ten they come back, and then there is a play ; 
and twelve strikes, and they go to supper ; and thus rolls round the Saturday. 
If I were to tell you how often you were asked after — how many questions 
were put to me without waiting for answers — how of ten I neglected to 
answer — how little they cared, and how much less I did— you would see 
the iniqaa corte (wicked court) before you in all its perfection. However, 
it never was so pleasant before, and everybody wishes it may last." 

Not a word of the morale of the spectacle ! Madame de 
Sevigne, who had one of the correetest reputations in France, 
wishes even it may last. Iniqua corte is a mere jesting phrase, 
applied to any court, Montespan was a friend of the family, 
though it knew Maintenon also, who was then preparing the 
downfall of the favourite. The latter, meantime, was a sort ©f 
vice-queen, reigning over the real one. When she journeyed, it 
was with a train of forty people ; governors of provinces offered 
to meet her with addresses ; and mtendants presented her with 
boats like those of Cleopatra, painted and gilt, luxurious with 
crimson damask, and streaming with the colours of France and 
Navarre. Louis was such a god at that time — he shook his 
" ambrosial curls " over so veritable an Olympus, where his 
praises were hymned by loving goddesses, consenting heroes, and 
incense-bearing priests — that if marriage had been a less conse- 



394 LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 

crated institution in the Catholic Church, and the Jesuits with 
their accommodating philosophy would have stood by him, one is 
almost tempted to believe he might. have crowned half-a-dozen 
queens at a time, and made the French pulpits hold forth with 
Milton on the merits of the patriarchal polygamies. 

But, to say the truth, except when she chose to be in the 
humour for it, great part of Madame de Sevigne's enjoyment, 
wherever she was, looked as little to the morale of the thing as 
need be. It arose from her powers of discernment and descrip- 
tion. No matter what kind of scene she beheld, whether exalted 
or humble, brilliant or gloomy, crowded or solitary, her sensi- 
bility turned all to account. She saw well for herself; and she 
knew, that what she saw she should enjoy over again, in telling 
it to her daughter. In the autumn of next year she is in the 
country, and pays a visit to an iron-foundry, where they made 
anchors. The scene is equally well felt with that at court. It is 
as good, in its way, as the blacksmith's in Spenser's House of 
Care, where the sound was heard 

" Of many iron hammers, beating rank, 
And answering their weary turns around ; " 

and where the visitor is so glad to get away from the giant and 
his " strong grooms," all over smoke and horror. 

EXTRACT OF A LETTER TO MADAME DE GRIGXAN. 

" Friday, 1st October, 1677. 
u * * * Yesterday evening at Cone, we descended into a veritable 
hell, the true forges of Vulcan. Eight or ten cyclops were at work, forging, 
not arms for JEneas, but anchors for ships. You never saw strokes redoubled 
so justly, nor with so admirable a cadence. We stood in the middle of four 
furnaces, and the demons came passing about us, all melting in sweat, with 
pale faces, wild-staring eyes, savage mustaches, and hair long and black ; 
a sight enough to frighten less well-bred folks than ourselves. As to me, 
I could not comprehend the possibility of refusing anything which these 
gentlemen, in their hell, might have chosen to exact. We got out at last 
by the help of a shower of silver, with which we took care to refresh their 
souls and facilitate our exit." 

This description is immediately followed by one as lively, of 
another sort : — 

" We had a taste, the evening before, at Nevcrs, of the most daring race 
you ever beheld. Four fair ladies, in a carriage, having seen us pass them 
in ours, had such a desire to behold our faces a second time, that they must 
needs get before us again, on a causeway made only for one coach. My 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE BEVIGNE. 395 

dear, their coachman brushed our very whiskers ; it is a mercy they were 
not pitched into the river ; we all cried out, i for God's sake ; ' they, for 
their parts, were dying with laughter ; and they kept galloping on above us 
and before us, in so tremendous and unaccountable a manner, that we have 
not got rid of the fright to this moment." 

There is a little repetition in the following, because truth 
required it ; otherwise it is all as good as new, fresh from the 
same mint that throws forth everything at a heat — whether 
anchors, or diamond earrings, or a coach in a gallop : — 

" Paris, 29th November (1679). 
" * * * I have been to this wedding of Madame de Louvois. How 
shall I describe it ? Magnificence, illuminations, all France, dresses all 
gold and brocade, jewels, braziers full of fire, and stands fall of flowers, 
confusions of carnages, cries out of doors, flambeaus, pushings back, people 
knocked up ; — in short, a whirlwind, a distraction ; questions without 
answers, compliments without knowing what is said, civilities without 
knowing who is spoken to, feet entangled in trains. From the middle of 
all this, issue inquiries after your health ; which, not being answered as 
quick as lightning, the inquiries pass on, contented to remain in the state 
of ignorance and indifference in which they were made. O vanity of 
vanities ! Pretty little De Mouchy has had the smallpox. O vanity, et 
cetera ! " 

In Boswell's Life of Johnson is a reference by the great and 
gloomy moralist to a passage in Madame de Sevigne, in which 
she speaks of existence having been imposed upon her without 
her consent ; but the conclusion he draws from it as to her 
opinion of life in general, is worthy of the critic who " never read 
books through." The momentary effusion of spleen is contra- 
dicted by the whole correspondence. She occasionally vents her 
dissatisfaction at a rainy day, or the perplexity produced in her 
mind by a sermon ; and when her tears begin flowing for a pain 
in her daughter's little finger, it is certainly no easy matter to 
stop them ; but there was a luxury at the heart of this woe. 
Her ordinary notions of life were no more like Johnson's, than 
rose-colour is like black, or health like disease. She repeatedly 
proclaims, and almost always shows, her delight in existence ; 
and has disputes with her daughter, in which she laments that 
she does not possess the same turn of mind. There is a passage, 
we grant, on the subject of old age, which contains a reflection 
similar to the one alluded to by Johnson, and which has been 
deservedly admired for its force and honesty. But even in this 
passage, the germ of the thought was suggested by the melan- 
choly of another person, not by her own. Madame de la Fayette 



396 LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE S^VIGNE. 

had written her a letter urging her to retrieve her affairs and 
secure her health, by accepting some money from her friends, and 
quitting the Rocks for Paris ; — offers which, however handsomely 
meant, she declined with many thanks, and not a little secret 
indignation ; for she was very jealous of her independence. In 
the course of this letter, Madame de la Fayette, who herself was 
irritable with disease, and who did not write it in a style much 
calculated to prevent the uneasiness it caused, made abrupt use of 
the words, " You are old." The little hard sentence came like a 
blow upon the lively, elderly lady. She did not like it at all ; 
and thus wrote of it to her daughter : — 

" So you were struck with the expression of Madame de la Fayette, 
blended with so much friendship. 'Twas a truth, I own, which I ought to 
have borne in mind ; and yet I must confess it astonished me, fur I do not 
yet perceive in myself any such decay. Nevertheless, I cannot help making 
many reflections and calculations, and I find the conditions of life hard 
enough. It seems to me that I have been dragged, against my will, to the 
fatal period when old age must be endured ; I see it ; 1 have come to it ; 
and I would fain, if I could help it, not go any further ; not advance a 
step more in the road of infirmities, of pains, of losses of memory, of dis- 
figurements ready to do me outrage ; and I hear a voice which says, You 
must go on in spite of yourself ; or, if you will not go on, you must die ; — 
and this is another extremity, from which nature revolts. Such is the lot, 
however, of all who advance beyond middle life. What is their resource ? 
To think of the will of God and of the universal law ; and so restore 
reason to its place, and be patient. Be jou then patient, accordingly, my 
dear child, and let not your affection soften into such tears as reason must 
condemn. " 

The whole heart and good sense of humanity seem to speak 
in passages like these, equally removed from the frights of the 
superstitious and the flimsiness or falsehood of levity. The 
ordinary comfort and good prospects of Madame de Sevigne's 
existence made her write with double force on these graver sub- 
jects, when they presented themselves to her mind. So, in her 
famous notice of the death of Louvois the minister — never, in a 
few words, were past ascendancy and sudden nothingness more 
impressively contrasted : — 

" I am so astonished at the news of the sudden death of M. de Louvois, 
that I am at a loss how to speak of it. Dead, however, he is, ibis great 
minister, this potent bein^, who occupied so great a place ; whose me (le 
moi), as M. Nicole says, had so wide a dominion ; who was the centre of so 
many orbs. What affairs had he not to manage ! what designs, what pro- 
jects, what secrets ! what interests to unravel, what wars to undertake, 
what intrigues, what noble games at chess to play and to direct ! Ah ! 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE s£viGX£. 397 

iny God, give me a little time : I want to give check to the Duke of Savoy 
— checkmate to the Prince of Orange. No, no, you shall not have a 
moment — not a single moment. Are events like these to be talked of ? 
Not they. We must reflect upon them in our closets. ,, 

This is part of a letter to her cousin Coulanges, written in the 
year 1691. Five years afterwards she died. 

The two English writers who have shown the greatest admira- 
tion of Madame de Sevigne, are Horace Walpole and Sir James 
Mackintosh. The enthusiasm of Walpole, who was himself a 
distinguished letter-writer and wit, is mixed up with a good deal 
of self-love. He bows to his own image in the mirror beside bei\ 
During one of his excursions to Paris, he visits the Hotel de Car- 
navalet and the house at Livry ; and has thus described bis im- 
pressions : — ■ 

" Madame de Chabot I called on last night. She was not at home, but 
the Hotel de Carnavalet was ; and I stopped on purpose to say an Ave- 
Maria before it." (This pun is suggested by one in Bussy Rabutin.) " It 
is a very singular building, not at all in the French style, and looks like an 
ex voto, raised to her honour by some of her foreign votaries. I don't think 
her half-honoured enough in her own country." * 

His visit to Livry is recorded in a letter to his friend Mon- 
tague : — ■ 

" One must be just to all the world. Madame Roland, I find, has been 
in the country, and at Versailles, and was so obliging as to call on me this 
morning ; but I was so disobliging as not to be awake. I was dreaming 
dreams ; in short, I had dined at Livry ; yes, yes, at Livry, with a Lang- 
lade and De la Rochefoucauld. The abbey is now possessed by an Abbe 
de Malherbe, with whom I am acquainted, and who had given me a general 
invitation. I put it off to the last moment, that the bois and allies might 
set off the scene a little, and contribute to the vision ; but it did not want 
it. Livry is situate in the Furet de Bondi, very agreeably on a flat, but 
with hills near it, and in prospect. There is a great air of simplicity and 
rural about it, more regular than our taste, but with an old-fashioned tran- 
quillity, and nothing of colifichet (frippery). Not a tree exists that remem- 
bers the charming woman, because in this country an old tree is a traitor, 
aud forfeits his head to the crown ; but the plantations are not young, and 
might very well be as they were in her time. The Abbe's house is decent 
and snug ; a few paces from it is the sacied pavilion built for Madame de 
Sevigne by her uncle, and much as it was in her day ; a small saloon below 
for dinner, then an arcade, but the niche, now closed, and painted in fresco 
with medallions of her, the Grignan, the Fayette, and the Rochefoucauld. 
Above, a handsome large room, with a chimney-piece in the best taste of 

* Letters, &c, vol. v. p, 74, edit, 1840, 



398 LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEYIGNE. 

Louis the Fourteenth's time ; a Holy Family in good relief over it, and 
the cipher of her uncle Coulanges ; a neat little bedchamber within, and 
two or three clean little chambers over them. On one side of the garden, 
leading to the great road, is a little bridge of wood, on which the dear 
woman used to wait for the courier that brought her daughter's letters. 
Judge with what veneration and satisfaction I set my foot upon it ! If you 
w r ill come to France with me next year, we will go and sacrifice on that 
sacred spot together." — Id. p. 142. 

Sir James Mackintosh became intimate with the letters of 
Madame de Sevigne during his voyage to India, and has left some 
remarks upon them in the Diary published in his Life. 

" The great charm," he says, " of her character seems to me a natural 
virtue. In what she does, as well as in what she says, she is unforced and 
unstudied ; nobody, I think, had so much morality without constraint, and 
played so much with amiable feelings without falling into vice. Her 
ingenious, lively, social disposition gave the direction to her mental power. 
She has so filled my heart with affectionate interest in her as a living 
friend, that I can scarcely bring myself to think of her as a writer, or as 
having a style ; but she has become a celebrated, perhaps an immortal 
writer, without expecting it : she is the only classical writer who never 
conceived the possibility of acquiring fame. Without a great force of 
style, she could not have communicated those feelings. In what does that 
talent consist ? It seems mainly to consist in the power of working bold 
metaphors, and unexpected turns of expression, out of the most familiar 
part of conversational language." * 

Sir James proceeds to give an interesting analysis of this 
kind of style, and the way in which it obtains ascendancy in the 
most polished circles ; and all that he says of it is very true. 
But it seems to us, that the main secret of the " charm" of 
Madame de Sevigne is to be found neither in her " natural 
virtue," nor in the style in which it expressed itself, but in 
something which interests us still more for our own sakes than 
the writer's, and which instinctively compelled her to adopt that 
style as its natural language. We doubt extremely, in the first 
place, whether any great (< charm" is ever felt in the virtue, 
natural or otherwise, however it may be respected. Headers are 
glad, certainly, that the correctness of her reputation enabled her 
to write with so much gaiety and boldness ; and perhaps (without 
at all taking for granted what Bussy Kabutin intimates about 
secret lovers) it gives a zest to certain freedoms in her conversa- 
tion, which are by no means rare ; for she was anything but a 

* Memoirs of the Life of the Right Hon. Sir James Mackintosh. 
2nd edit. vol. ii. p. 217. 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 399 

prude. We are not sure that her character for personal cor- 
rectness does not sometimes produce even an awkward impres- 
sion, in connection with her relations to the court and # the mis- 
tresses ; though the manners of the day, and her superiority to 
sermonizing and hypocrisy, relieve it from one of a more painful 
nature. Certain we are, however, that we should have liked her 
still hetter, had she manifested a power to love somebody else 
besides her children; had she married again, for instance, in- 
stead of passing a long widowhood from her five-and-twentieth 
year, not, assuredly, out of devotion to her husband's memory. 
Such a marriage, we think, would have been quite as natural 
as any virtue she possessed. The only mention of her hus- 
band that we can recollect in all her correspondence, with the 
exception of the allusion to Ninon, is in the following date of a 
letter : — 

"Paris, Friday, Feb. 5, 1672. — This day thousand years I was 
married." 

We do not accuse her of heartlessness. We believe she had 
a very good heart. Probably, she liked to be her own mistress ; 
but this does not quite explain the matter in so loving a person. 
There were people in her own time who doubted the love for her 
daughter — surely with great want of justice. But natural as that 
virtue was, and delightful as it is to see it, was the excess of it 
quite so natural ? or does a thorough intimacy with the letters 
confirm our belief in that excess ? It does not. The love was 
real and great ; but the secret of what appears to be its extra- 
vagance is, perhaps, to be found in the love of power ; or, not to 
speak harshly, in the inability of a fond mother to leave off her 
habits of guidance and dictation, and the sense of her importance 
to her child. Hence a fidgetiness on one side, which was too 
much allied to exaction and self-will, and a proportionate tendency 
to ill-concealed, and at last open impatience on the other. The 
demand for letters was not only incessant and avowed ; it was to 
be met with as zealous a desire, on the daughter's part, to supply 
them. If little is written, pray write more : if much, don't write 
so much for fear of headaches. If the headaches are complained 
of, what misery ! if not complained of, something worse and more 
cruel has taken place — it is a concealment. Friends must take 
care how they speak of the daughter as too well and happy. The 
mother then brings to our mind the " Falkland" of Sheridan, 
and expresses her disgust at these " perfect-health folks." Even 



400 LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 



' 



lovers tire under such surveillance : and as affections between 
mother and child, however beautiful, are not, in the nature of 
things, o£ a like measure of reciprocity, a similar result would 
have beeu looked for by the discerning eyes of Madame de 
Sevigne, had the case been any other than her own. But the 
tears of self-love mingle with those of love, and blind the kindest 
natures to the difference. It is too certain, or rather it is a fact 
which reduces the love to a good honest natural size, and there- 
fore ought not, so far, to be lamented, that this fond mother and 
daughter, fond though they were, jangled sometimes, like their 
inferiors, both w 7 hen absent and present, leaving nevertheless a 
large measure of affection to diffuse itself in joy and comfort over 
the rest of their intercourse. It is a common case, and we like 
neither of them a jot the less for it. We may only be allowed 
to repeat our wish (as Madame de Grignan must often have done), 
that the "dear Marie de Babutin," as Sir James Mackintosh 
calls her, had had a second husband, to divert some of the 
responsibilities of affection from her daughter's head. Let us 
recollect, after all, that we should not have heard of the distress 
but for the affection ; that millions who might think fit to throw 
stones at it, would in reality have no right to throw a pebble ; 
and that the wit which has rendered it immortal, is beautiful 
for every species of truth, but this single deficiency in self- 
knowledge. 

That is the great charm of Madame de Sevigne — trutli. 
Truth, wit, and animal spirits compose the secret of her delight- 
fulness ; but truth above all, for it is that which shows all the 
rest to be true. If she had not more natural virtues than most 
other good people, she had more natural manners; and the 
universality of her taste, and the vivacity of her spirits, giving 
her the widest range of enjoyment, she expressed herself natu- 
rally on all subjects, and did not disdain the simplest and most 
familiar phraseology, when the truth required it. Familiarities 
of style, taken by themselves, have been common more or less to 
all wits, from the days of Aristophanes to those of Byron ; and, 
in general, so have animal spirits. Rabelais was full of both. 
The followers of Pulci and Berni, in Italy, abound in them. 
What distinguishes Madame de Sevigne is, first, that she was a 
woman so writing, which till her time had been a thing unknown, 
and has not been since witnessed in any such charming degree ; 
and second, and above all, that she writes " the truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth; 1 ' never giving us falsehood of 



LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 40 L 

any kind, not even a single false metaphor, or only half-true 
simile or description ; nor writing for any purpose on earth, but 
to say what she felt, and please those who could feel with her. 
If we consider how few writers there are, even among the best, 
to whom this praise, in its integrity, can apply, we shall be 
struck, perhaps, with a little surprise and sorrow for the craft of 
authors in general ; but certainly with double admiration for 
Madame de Sevigne. We do not mean to say that she is always 
right in opinion, or that she had no party or conventional feelings. 
She entertained, for many years, some strong prejudices. She 
was bred up in so exclusive an admiration for the poetry of Cor- 
neille, that she thought Kacine would go out of fashion. Her 
loyalty made her astonished to find that Louis was not invincible ; 
and ber connection with the Count de Grignan, who was employed 
in the dragonades against the Huguenots, led, her but negatively 
to disapprove those inhuman absurdities. But these were acci- 
dents of friendship or education : her understanding outlived 
them ; nor did they hinder her, meantime, from describing truth- 
fully what she felt, and from being right as well as true in nine- 
tenths of it all. Her sincerity made even her errors a part of her 
truth. She never pretended to be above what she felt ; never 
assumed a profound knowledge ; never disguised an ignorance. 
Her mirth, and her descriptions, may sometimes appear exagge- 
rated ; but the spirit of truth, not of contradiction, is in them ; 
and excess in such cases is not falsehood, but enjoyment — not tbe 
wine adulterated, but the cup running over. All her wit is 
healthy ; all its images entire and applicable throughout — not 
palsy- stricken with irrelevance ; not forced in, and then found 
wanting, like Walpole's conceit about the trees, in the passage 
above quoted. Madame de Sevigne never wrote such a passage 
in her life. All her lightest and most fanciful images, all her 
most daring expressions, have the strictest propriety, the most 
genuine feeling, a home in the heart of truth; — as when, for 
example, she says, amidst continual feasting, that she is " famished 
for want of hunger;" that there were no " interlineations " in the 
conversation of a lady, who spoke from the heart ; that she went 
to vespers one evening out of pure opposition, which taught her 
to comprehend the " sacred obstinacy of martyrdom;" that she 
did not keep a " philosopher's shop ;" that it is difficult for people 
in trouble to " bear thunder- claps of bliss in others." It is the 
same from the first letter we have quoted to the last ; from the 
proud and merry boasting of the young mother with a boy, to the 

26 



402 



LIFE AND LE 



candid shudder abou< 
death to grant a mn 
single moment." S 
and nature and trut 
with glory and hone 



ADAME DE s£viGX£. 

a of old age, and the refusal of 
dying statesman — " no, not a 

ire and truth without misgiving ; 

in return, and have crowned her 



THE END, 



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